Xbox pretty much decided to not sell any more consoles by increasing the price of the systems people weren’t buying much of anyway. And as an extra bonus to their loyalists, they decided to go forward with cranking up future game prices as well, because if Nintendo’s doing it, then anyone can I guess. Maybe they’re also just desperate to have more people buy in to Game Pass while also not lowering the cost of that and also planning to do the opposite.
I could rant on everything that led to the new AAAA standard of $80 USD games, but everyone else is doing that, so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here while blaming economic collapse or oppressive regimes or whatever else is wrong with humanity. It’s really just what the publishers wanted, to charge increasing amounts for games, thinking that’s how to make more money, regardless of actual costs and having to fire over half of their workforces just to keep giving the suits raises. And then run a subscription service on the side which will gradually eventually cost as much as one of those games per month because there needed to be more Netflix competitors.
Games were expensive back in the 1990s as well, given the cost of cartridges and how the N64 stuck with those, resulting in the $60-70 price ranges for those games, which in today’s money is probably along the lines of $6000-7000 or whatever. And then disc-based consoles were the future until they weren’t. But then there’s the case where physical copies most typically launched at the same price as their downloaded counterparts, so it becomes more of a question of convenience. To the effect of further motivating going fully digital, physical copies are likely to have additional costs tacked onto the base price from here on, regardless of “market conditions”, since it’s just the perfect excuse to roll that out. They’ve tried similar things many times before, like that whole “online pass” nonsense to try to combat used game sales by attempting to make used copies cost more to the buyer who also wanted to play on servers that would last who knows how long, or even further weirdness for singleplayer versions of the same idea that just granted random low-value DLC or whatever.
In all fairness I wasn’t a fan of $60 price tags on games when that became a thing again around the 360 era, and usually waited for whatever sales to happen as I did fewer pre-orders while figuring out I’d probably get around to a game at roughly the same time whether I got it at launch or a year later. Same goes for the last recent increase to $70 and now beyond. They’re already selling $100 and up games anyway, just look at those super deluxe pre-order things that let you play a buggier version of the game a couple days early, provided that even works. And then they’ll go on sale for maybe 30% off after a few months, unless they actually turned out good.
At least for cheaper games, there are still indies, which could give you a whole lot of game for a fraction of what the megacorps are asking. There are even indie systems, from actual dedicated console stuff like the Playdate to full-on handheld PCs, but those can be a premium, partly due to not being the typical “loss-leader” a console from the usual suspects can be. And yet they can still be cheaper than a usual console, but often aren’t, with particular mention for handheld gaming PCs. But there’s the potential added value of having a full-on portable computer that isn’t just a phone with its weird limitations.
I’m really just hoping to stick with whatever hardware I have at the moment from here on out, even with somewhat recent upgrades and PS5 acquisition (a console that will probably also jack up its price soon), as well as most certainly already have something to play on it, regardless of whatever the industry’s doing to speed its demise and whatever “market forces” are doing to eradicate humanity’s worth or whatever. If I’m getting any more non-secondhand games, they’re probably indies on sale. Maybe even not on sale. But any non-indies definitely on sale.
I’m also wondering when the Switch 2 emulator will come out, only to be taken down and subsequently passed around behind the scenes until the heat dies down. I get the feeling it’ll only be more popular this time around. The Nintendo system itself is also once again playing catch-up to the rest of the game releases of recent times, including running Cyberpunk 2077 decently. I’m just glad I can run that more than decently on my current setup. Certain remasters of 20-year old games on the other hand, not so much, but it’s very playable even if not consistently the peak framerate.
Maybe there’s some nostalgia to be found in not hitting a usual 60 FPS, but that’s also me not really wanting to use the upscalers and frame generators and so on, and also not running in 4K as an excuse for that. The fact I can run it as good as I can without needing to make up most of the frames by guessing is just nice. Throwing “AI” at everything is just the modern bandage, but it’s often either that glue that doesn’t stick well or it sticks too well and leaves a bunch of residue and sometimes damages the surface underneath. Maybe my time with Starfield running an upscaler, since that was just its default, and may not have been very necessary in the long run, turned me off of the idea. Everything just seemed a bit blurry with it, in a slightly unsettling way, and the sterile art style of a lot things in that game probably accentuated that a bit.