Cliff Notes – With the PS6 and next gen Xbox gaming is now only for the rich Reader’s Feature
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The rising costs of consoles and games are making gaming increasingly unaffordable, with next-gen consoles expected to exceed current prices significantly, potentially pricing out many fans.
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Traditional methods of accessing games, such as rentals and reselling, have diminished, leaving sales and full-price purchases as the only viable options for budget-conscious gamers.
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The shift towards high-priced consoles, like the anticipated Xbox and PlayStation models, indicates a trend where gaming is becoming a luxury hobby, alienating casual players and families.
The current gen consoles aren’t exactly cheap themselves (Sony/Microsoft/Metro)
As reports suggest the next gen consoles are going to be significantly more expensive than usual, a reader fears he’s being priced out of being a video games fan.
Video games have never exactly been cheap but there’s always been ways round that. You have to buy the console, but in days gone by you could rent games and you could resell them once you played them. When I was a kid, I probably only got one or two full price games a year and yet I managed to play most of the big names through a combination of that and just borrowing off friends. Now though, all three of those methods are impossible.
There’s no way to rent games (unless you count Game Pass, but that doesn’t include everything anyway) and eBay is the only option for second-hand, if the game even has a physical edition. I guess I could pop round my friend’s house to play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for an hour, but that’s not really practical anymore, now neither of us are 14 anymore.
No, the only way to buy games cheaply is to wait for the sales or not to get them at all. And it’s only going to get harder, as prices rise and rise, and probably rise again when we get to GTA 6. Buying video games is a rich man’s pastime now and in the next gen that’s going to apply to the consoles as well.
This gen is already much more expensive than the last. The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are far more than they should be for such small advances on their predecessors, while the PS5 Pro is out of control stupid in terms of its price. I imagine that’s going to be the baseline for the next gen though.
I’m not sure what generation you want to put Switch 2 in but that’s much more expensive than the last one, even though being cheap was one of the Switch 1’s big selling points. And its games are actually more expensive than the average, when it comes to Mario Kart World. Everything is pointing in only one direction.
And then we come to the news this week that made me write this, and which confirms that next gen I’m probably not going to be able to afford a PlayStation or Xbox at all. Everything to do with PlayStation 6 is a bit more vague but we already know that Sony has no problem with charging well above the odds and they’re going to do it even more now that Xbox is offering so little competition.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
AMD are making the chips for both the PS6 and next gen Xbox (Microsoft)
Will Microsoft take advantage of this with a next gen equivalent of the Xbox Series S? No, according to the latest leaks they’re going to make something hyper expensive that could be up to $1,000 or more. Basically, a desktop PC with an Xbox logo slapped on it.
You can kind of see why, since they’ve obviously lost the console wars and there’s no point doing the same thing again, but now that they’re trying to appeal only to hardcore fans the price is ridiculous.
The problem is that being a hardcore fan didn’t use to mean being rich. Sure, you’d end up spending a lot of money on games but if that’s your main hobby then all the methods I’ve mentioned help you to do it within your means. But now all those safety nets are gone and the starting cost, of buying the console, has gone up too.
What’s the alternative? Buy a PC, which is just as expensive and comes with all its obvious drawbacks, or get a Switch 2, which can’t play the highest end games. Those aren’t alternatives, those are compromises.
I’m not a poor man but I am a family man, and it’s got to the point where I can’t be spending this amount of money on video games. It’s just too much and companies aren’t even trying to make them affordable.
The logic seems to be that if most people are happy with free-to-play games then you might as well fleece those that don’t like that stuff for as much as possible, since they’ll pay anything. Well, that’s not true. I’ll pay a lot but my wallet is not infinite and I’ve got to call quits at some point and I think next gen will be it.
By reader Benson
Everything points towards the next gen Xbox being very expensive (Metro/Microsoft)
The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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