The Backlog Check-In Vol. 442: 6/22/26: Star Fox Edition

[argyle]

Man, prices across the board are nuts these days, but specifically sticking to gaming, Microsoft just announced a +$100 hike on their 512gb consoles & a +$150 on the 1tb models. And it's not like these price increases are specific to MS (or just consoles, I deal with purchasing PCs in my job and prices are going through the roof on everything).

What really gets me though is that both MS & Sony are talking about putting out new consoles next year. Really?? First, I don't really know how many more pores we need to be able to see in our characters' faces. It used to be that by the time a new console came out, you could see that devs were pushing the current gen for all it was worth. But now? Not so much. I'm not saying games look bad, I'm just saying that I don't see where they need to look any better. And I really don't see who's going to be able to afford these new systems. The STEAM machine price was just announced, as I'm sure you guys heard, to be starting at $1050 for the base model. And that's with no controller. Plus, sites have already gotten the thing & did some comparison benchmarks with it and it's performing worse than the base PS5. So how are Sony & MS expecting to put out hardware that's significantly more powerful and still be able to price it so that anyone can actually afford it?

[canedaddy]

What really gets me though is that both MS & Sony are talking about putting out new consoles next year. Really?? First, I don't really know how many more pores we need to be able to see in our characters' faces. It used to be that by the time a new console came out, you could see that devs were pushing the current gen for all it was worth. But now? Not so much. I'm not saying games look bad, I'm just saying that I don't see where they need to look any better. And I really don't see who's going to be able to afford these new systems. The STEAM machine price was just announced, as I'm sure you guys heard, to be starting at $1050 for the base model. And that's with no controller. Plus, sites have already gotten the thing & did some comparison benchmarks with it and it's performing worse than the base PS5. So how are Sony & MS expecting to put out hardware that's significantly more powerful and still be able to price it so that anyone can actually afford it?

I don't think there is any consumer appetite whatsoever for new machines, especially with how much they'll cost. Millions of people are still happily staying on PS4 and even PS3. A new PS6 next year would bomb spectacularly. Same with any other "next-gen" console.

[isthatallyougot]

Yeah, I think we're in a new era, fiscally speaking, especially in terms of tech. Valve revealed that their overpriced and underpowered (according to tech enthusiasts) Steam machine is a stronger device than 70% of their users machines, and they poll and keep thorough records of hardware specs on their platform.

For me personally, we've been in an era of significant diminishing returns for a long-time now. And while I know I'm an outlier in terms of not being demanding of graphical fidelity, I think that you'll see consumers sticking to older tech when talking about mass market numbers. The squeeze is just overwhelming on large scales. There will obviously be exceptions that will pay whatever, but you don't build large businesses on small market segments.