Comment by robertlagrant
8 hours ago
That's one thing. The other is price. Consoles can be sold at a loss, particularly early in their 10-year cycle, when early on the loss is high, but close to the end of the cycle the loss is minimal, and so they appear much cheaper.
Given recent price rises for console hardware I think they're struggling with that too though. The model doesn't work as well if the components get more expensive over time and not less?
But PC parts are also getting more expensive, so the difference is still there.
Yeah I mean specifically the "sell at a loss, wait for costs to get lower over the generation" thing. if it's at a loss at the start of the generation and component costs only rise, it'll still sell for a loss at the end but also it'll be more expensive for customers. this puts the company in a hard position. a lot of gamers are also used to waiting until the end of the life of a console and getting games used, which might no longer be an option
Oh, for sure! It's not getting any better with PC part prices lately either...
I've never considered that my old 360 was probably sold at a loss, knowing I'd buy LIVE and all the games they take a cut/license fee off of, but that makes complete sense to me
This cycle is different. Prices have increased for both Sony and Microsoft’s consoles and no higher efficiency versions have been released (ala the PS3, X360).
Sony released the PS5 Slim earlier this cycle.
Isn’t PS5 Pro a higher efficiency version?
No, it's a more powerful version.