I’m amazed they’ve not crashed more. The PS5 and Xbox whatever the fuck they called it are both 6 years old, if you haven’t already decided to buy one why would you get one now after the price hike?
Console market craters as Xbox sales crash 33% to the lowest since launch 25 years ago, PS5 sales drop 25%
Submitted 3 weeks ago by sundray@lemmus.org to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Infernal_pizza@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Anafabula@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Some people really want to play gta 6 before it comes to pc I guess
aksdb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s how I ended up buying a PS3 back when GTA V was released. Well, that and Gran Turismo and wanting a Blu-ray player. But it was still not really worth it.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ll eat my shoe if a PC under $1000 will be able to play GTA VI even halfway decently when it comes to the platform. My handheld PC is nominally way more powerful than my Series S, but I’m lucky to get half the performance out of it because the Series S gets a bespoke treatment from devs to make it work well.
absquatulate@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Same. Maybe gta6 presales tempered the fall?
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Gaming in general is way too expensive now.
At least we have retro games to play instead.
ripcord@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Which I’m playing on my Steam Deck! Which starts at only…wait, 750 dollars?!?
Yenaplus@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Bought it when it came out 419€. I dont see myself paying twice the price today.
Flashstash98@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
Crazy to think the base lcd model was like $350 only 2-3 years ago. I know it’s not valves fault but that is a huge jump in price.
nekobeko@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Or you could get an AYN Thor for 350$ + 30$ shipping and a wait time of 3 months
Janx@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Everything is too expensive now! Late-stage capitalism sucks…
smeg@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Only if you want brand new games and top spec hardware. I get free games every day, and I can play them on my old laptop, my dedicated handheld, or even my phone!
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Not just here but everywhere. Everyone (except those with too much) is holding tight to their wallet until trump dies and some stability comes back to the world.
lemmyng@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
These companies have said plainly that they don’t see prices returning to pre-pandemic levels even if the current economic crisis is resolved. Corpos are too greedy, and the people in power are even greedier.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
its not even a choice for me. i have been unemployed for over 2 years now. since just before he got elected.
Damage@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Lol as if one person can be the cause of all this
Janx@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
People have unfairly held US presidents responsible for the state of the economy in the past… But in this case Trump’s illegal tariffs and pointless war with Iran absolutely are the cause of current high prices, or at least huge contributing factors. Republicans are a disaster for the economy…
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I don’t really see what difference trump dying would make to me tbh. Got enough money, don’t really want to buy many things even though I can afford them.
I could afford a new gaming PC every year. But my RTX2070 is fine. I won’t spend money without a good reason to and I don’t really see many good reasons right now. I have pretty much anything I could reasonably.
BigMacHole@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Raising Prices and making them the EXACT same as Computers but Worse didn’t bring in MORE Sales? Quick! MAYBE if we Raise the Prices MORE it’ll Reverse course!
-EVERY High Paid CEO ever!
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
EXACT same as Computers
I wouldn’t call it exact same. Hardware, yes, compatible. But that is not what a console is about. The hardware compatibility to a PC if any is a positive for consoles, because it makes ports and develop on the games much easier without much fuss. And consoles aren’t worse to a PC in all cases, they still have some value. The operating system and game compatibility, and ease of use are major factors.
emb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s not exactly the same, but I do feel like it’s almost always worse in the console side (excepting Nintendo here).
On console you’re juggling patches and updates, installing to drive, you have concerns about whether games will play well on non-pro versions of the system, Xbox is traditionally hostile to physical media while PS is ending it.
If you’re going to install digital games and download updates, worry about compatibility, might as well play on PC. Those issues are less on console, but present on both.
Meanwhile most games are getting PC ports (since modern consoles are very PC like and games need the extra sales), you’re not as locked down to a single store, you have more room to upgrade incrementally (in theory). Operating system is also in favor of PC.
Ease of use I’d still grant that consoles have advantage, sure.
I don’t argue all this to put down consoles, I love consoles and played only/mostly on consoles for many years. But I think there’s a lot of truth to saying modern PS and Xbox have moved so close to PC that they’re losing the pros and embracing the same cons.
ceiphas@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
It was about the prices… THEY are the same
SplitTheUSInFour@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s the same theme everywhere. They build for some kind of non existent luxury market while buyers stretch themselves thin. Now no one has any money left and credit cards are maxed.
We’re not buying what’s being sold. So now what?
FearMeAndDecay@literature.cafe 3 weeks ago
Now they blame millennials and gen z kids for ruining gaming
And then they switch to everything being a live service so instead of buying games you just have access to the “whole library” of games (for whatever payment tier you’re in) which they will change and remove games without warning and deleting all of your progress unless you pay them at least $20 a month for cloud saves
Oh and the only games in the games library are ai slop vibe coded games that are unplayable carbon copies of each other
AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Oh and the only games in the games library are ai slop vibe coded games that are unplayable carbon copies of each oth
Man, Ubisoft sure did trailblaze for the industry. Including that part where it has already started dying before its competitors.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
If me putting another 1000 hours into factorio is millennials killing gaming, I guess I will go and kill gaming.
Nuclear MLRS robot spiders. Railway artillery cannons. Flamethrower turrets. Industrialised warfare. Why would I leave? I just started a marathon deathworld run.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Steve Bannon ruined gaming.
No, I will not be taking further questions.
404found@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I won’t purchase another system because I don’t want to deal with 1) constant downloads- new games, game updates, system updates, data collection 2) logging in all the time 3) not owning a physical copy of a game.
They complicated the fuck out of doing basic things on their systems and I want no part of it. What have they done to keep the consumer interested in their systems?
DrSoap@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Microtransactions, ads, no offline modes, you don’t own your own games any more… well they topped all of it with the new console. You buy games that are just empty boxes. Might be a slip of paper in there letting you rent it for $80 flat fee, but they’ll take that game back any time they damn well please.
NOW BEG FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT PEASANT.
Aneb@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I find it weird tho, Xbox literally started ‘cloud’ gaming a few years ago and now there’s games that can’t be played on consoles. You need a subscription to cloud game instead of just using your console to run the game
Polisheocket@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
They’ve never taken a game back. Everyone is causing a fear that doesn’t exist. I only buy digital, never had a problem.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Exclusives.
Legit the only reason.
solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I’d rather wait for the ps5 emulator(s)
DupaCycki@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Clearly this is because people are just tired of buying physical goods. They want digital consoles!
ZAP@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Yeah! Everything muat be digital and if someone still wants the box it can just have a paper with a code in it.
I mean who would like to play the single player game about 5 years later when the servers are down?
Right?
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Stadia tried it.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Ahead of its time, IMO. And honestly should not even have wireless. Might be usable in grandma’s house out in the middle of the woods (unless Grandma’s got a shit-ton of IoT stuff…or one cheap security camera), but just about anywhere else it’s far too unreliable.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The future will be even worse. Have you seen what people have been doing with AI the last couple of weeks. People have decompiled entire games using AI and made PS5 games run on PC natively. Something that took years by multiple devs takes a few days by a single dev with a Claude account. Sony and MS are definitely shitting their pants right now. Their solution will be cloud streaming only consoles.
Soggy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Good thing there’s already more good games out than I could play if I lived another hundred years.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Honestly, almost every console runs on my PC. Why not just make Microsoft Xbox for Linux?
Flamekebab@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Hardware costs have gone up, compelling games releases for them have gone down (and didn’t start from a good position).
Such a mystery.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Not to mention they explicitly stated disc sales are dead. All my console games are physical, so I will no longer buy consoles games or consoles. Seems like the way to go.
AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Don’t forget you also don’t own those 120$ games!
Janx@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Plus they bought up all those game studios only to close them, lay off all the workers, and cancel the finished or in-progress games for tax breaks. And like Sony, they have said that they will no longer support physical games, creating a monopoly in their digital store and destroying further goodwill from gamers like me. They have completely lost the plot…
mechoman444@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
OMG! It’s almost like constantly raising prices just isn’t working out!
It doesn’t matter how expensive RAM gets, what the market is doing, how much AI is driving up component prices, or whether the market is bullish or bearish. At some point, consumers reach a breaking point. When a product becomes too expensive, people stop buying it. They don’t particularly care why it’s expensive. They care whether it’s worth the asking price, and whether they can justify spending that much money on it.
And that’s the problem Sony and Microsoft seem to be running into. Between rising console prices, increasingly expensive games, subscription price hikes, and a growing number of anti-consumer practices, they’ve made gaming an increasingly expensive hobby while giving consumers fewer reasons to feel good about spending their money.
What’s worse is that these companies have spent years alienating a significant portion of their own fan bases. Aggressive monetization, digital ownership concerns, restrictive ecosystems, and the push toward subscriptions have steadily eroded consumer goodwill. You can only squeeze your customers so much before they start questioning whether they want to remain customers at all.
At the end of the day, consumers aren’t obligated to buy a PlayStation or an Xbox just because they bought one last generation. They can stick with their existing hardware, buy fewer games, switch platforms, or walk away from gaming altogether.
You can’t price your way to endless growth, especially when you’re simultaneously giving your customers more reasons not to buy your products. Eventually, the market pushes back. And frankly, it’s hardly surprising that we’re seeing that happen now.
nomy@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
If I have to drop nearly $1k on a gaming platform the money is so much better spent on a PC anyway.
mursejoy@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Especially since on PC apps like retro arch give you better access to backlogs that these companies aren’t even offering! You want to play PS2 games 4k upscale 60 fps? Can’t do that on PS5. You can surely do it on PC though.
DrunkenDuckling@lemmus.org 2 weeks ago
PC ends up being so much cheaper in the long run… Far better game prices and no subscription cancer
StoneStar@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
Gaming is not an expensive hobby at all if you stick to good games. The best game in the world runs on a Pentium 2 with 64MB of RAM.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Does CDDA still run on 64MB?
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Can’t play games when hungry.
invertedspear@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yeah, indicators are indicating. Things they don’t seem to talk about. Used car lots are empty while new car lots are full. The tourist restaurants no longer have waiting lists. Gaming is a luxury expense, as in we don’t need it to survive, while new game prices are higher than they’ve ever been. I’m willing to bet most if not all luxury spending is down.
Prices are high and companies decided shitty AI is better than good people. So jobs are getting scarcer or paying less.
In the words of my kids: we’re cooked fam.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Spending might be down overall for the average person, but that doesn’t necessarily mean no spending either. Could be moving to spend somewhere else, on things perceived to be better value for money.
Last AAA game I bought was shadow of mordor and it was discounted to £2.50 at the time. If I had paid £60 for that I would want a refund. It wasn’t a bad game by any means but no where near enough playtime of value to be worth that price. Meanwhile Factorio or Rimworld release at much lower prices and keep their price for over a decade because people generally see them as being worth it even after all this time.
Soggy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’ve clearly never seen me ignore all my biological needs to play games for 14 straight hours.
regdog@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Amateur!
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Clearly you don’t have good enough games. When I first got Factorio I became nocturnal.
Tango@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
Doesn’t mention how Switches and Steam Decks are doing, but I would venture to guess that Valve is eating Sony and Microsoft’s lunch.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Gabecube is projected to sell several hundreds thousand copies. PlayStation 5 is close to 100 million units sold.
CriticalThought@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I will be curious how PS5 does moving forward and how well any PS6 does. Seems like Sony is in the FA stage and might be transitioning to FO.
LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I’ve just bought my first console in nearly 10 years but it wasn’t any of the big three. My partner and I are loving our new Steam Machine.
nullspace@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I literally own two ps4s and two copies of a game my SO and I wanted to play together, but neither of us have an active PS+. We would both have to resub just to play it together in the same room. It ended up being cheaper just to buy two copies again on Steam to play it together on PC/laptop. There’s no reason to own a console anymore. Their convenience is completely gone.
frostypanda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Curious to see Nintendo’s numbers in comparison.
And yeah, those prices are insane. At a certain point, just pay for a PC and have access to whatever you want. Plus, you don’t have to pay an additional fee for online features. It doesn’t have to be the best gaming rig ever, especially for most people. And recoup the money spent on a gaming rig by escaping the closed eco system. Wait for good sales on PC games or turn to the high seas.
And honestly, outside of Nintendo, I haven’t seen a console exclusive game on Xbox or PS5 that I’ve wanted to play in years. Last non-indie game I actually loved playing was Baldur’s Gate 3. I think AAA gaming is more or less dead for a lot of people.
Those prices though. People can still game without consoles, and with the way their destroying the economy, it seems people have wisened up to that.
likebudda@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
If I bought one it would end up in the pile of gaming devices I don’t use. I have an RG35XXSP for GBA, GB,and GC, a Retroid Mini for PSP, Vita, NES, SNES, PSX, DC, and arcade, a Retroid Pocket Nova for PS2, GC, and N64, an AYN Odin 2 portal for Android games, PC games/streaming, a 5800X3D/7900XTX PC for 4K OLED gaming, and a 5700X3D/9070XT for 1440P widescreen gaming. I’m nearing 660 games on my steam/epic/gog libraries and I have 2TB of rom dumps for all of the retro systems. I’ve spent thousands of dollars to realize I don’t like gaming, I liked hanging out with my friends.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Congratulations to PCs for winning the console wars :3
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Turns out, fucking over your customers is bad for buisness. Who could have guessed?
Doomsider@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Another industry with its bottom falling out.
HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As a PC gamer concerned about game preservation: good. Consoles are just walled hardware fiefdoms.
Pratai@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
Oh no! Major corporations are not making billions?!
How can we help!
/s
MasutaHarada@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
Do they know most of their customers have budget and they can’t juat spend entirety of it for gaming stuff alone, let’s also not talk about their potential customers that will gated by those huge cost for entry-level gaming setup.
Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The handheld PC market is really becoming competition, huh?
dantheclamman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is called demand destruction.
SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
How long until someone digs up a bunch of Halo Infinite discs from a New Mexico desert?
theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I can’t afford to upgrade my PC with the prices of shit these days so this weekend I actually bought a PS5.
With the new relapse jailbreak the PS5 hacking scene seems to be popping off and it is a way that I can play newer games at a more reasonable price.
Sony certainly didn’t get any money though, I always buy secondhand and this is no different and they will not get any money for games either but what with Linux running on old old firmwares it is only a matter of time before these newer, crackable firmwares also get Linux support and then I will effectively have a new, better PC for a fraction of the cost.
In the meantime I can go and play bloodborne finally!
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
sales crash 33% to the lowest since 25 years ago
steep price hikes
duh
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Lol
LotrOrc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I looked at buying a ps5 for the first time since it came out a couple weeks ago because I really wanted to play LOTR War in the North again.
Its twice as expensive as it was when it came out.
I just went home and grabbed my old ps2.
Its absolutely insane that this console is so expensive right now.
It is also the last PS I will get because I want physical discs.
myyass@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Is this surprising? It was written all over the wall when sony went after anime hubs and pushed hard to shut down free portals. Now microslop is making a push to make movies? That’s bound to go as well as sonys garbage. Scroungers looking for scraps that can’t read the room.
LostWanderer@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
LOL Consoles are too expensive, and this is the find out stage of their fuck around. Its not all that surprising, especially with the ending of physical games on Sony's part and Microsoft being generally shitty... They might not recover for a while. Bully for them!
DrPop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is true. Who wants to spend all that money at once. My PC may be more expensive than I console but I spent no more than $250 at a time as I upgraded it. People don’t need $1000 graphics cards to play modern games.
TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
And in the midst of these increasing hardware costs Sony thinks people would not mind paying the premium for their digital only games, completely killing the second hand and retail markets, bless their heart.
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I had a ps3 and a ps4 and was fully up for getting a ps5. Then it came out right around COVID time and I couldn’t get one anywhere because of scalpers. So I thought, “No worries, I’ll just wait a year or two and pick one up for cheap.” Then it just never got cheaper. Now it’s like a 5-6 year old machine that costs over $900 CAD so I just never bothered.