Nintendo is using old ass shit. So chip wise they don’t have to worry. On top of things like size, weight, of what they freight.
PS5 is way more complex and custom to make. They literally up till the past year had to change where certain components were made. On top of in first year if it’s release shrink the heat sink.
Oculus went up by $100 fucking dollars.
I think we get a cheaper redesign sooner than later.
Sony is not a trillion dollar company. And before you point to Nintendo, Nintendo spends less than a third than what Sony does re-investment wise.
Sony literally spends 4-5x the amount investment wise and has higher operating costs than Nintendo. And made like close to same amount net profit wise last year.
So you do the math.
Microsoft names billions per month on software subs alone for enterprise. Let alone their other products like azure.
You think this is something Sony wants to do after getting out of Covid and getting supply chain allotment some what sorted?
Now all of that has gone out the window with prices on everything going up. So the plastics in a console, down to the copper where Ukraine is one of the main places the world gets it from.
Hi back and look at PS3 days. They ate a lot of it because our side of certain components there were none global factors. As in tarrifs, exchange rates were not so jacked.
They were not spending tripled to quadruple price in petroleum. Fright weight, all that.
I mean it sucks. And Sony should weather the storm. But got to factor in what they also make. Cameras fir films, broadcast equipment, tv’s, phones. Costs on everything they make and they primarily are a consumer/product driven company. Nintendo is very lean in their spending. And have a product they have stock piles upon stock piles that takes less space to ship/freight.
Also something else about the Swtich: they are on an older node process that is far less in-demand among many companies, so the only thing really limiting Nintendo in terms of getting chips for the Switch (outside of RAM and storage) is how much money they want to spend on production and what capacities their distribution channels can handle peak-wise. They haven't had to deal with other companies fighting for a newer node process the way Microsoft and Sony have.
I needed a bit of a mental break yesterday in terms of gaming stuff (well, outside of Twitter) because I was still just trying to figure why Sony made the announcement of the price increase the way they did. Also seeing some of the outright ridiculous and fanboyish statements from users on certain other forums (the one that starts with an R), you can tell they've always had a disdain for Sony and it seems like that forum in particular has become increasingly hostile towards the company/brand and are acting like X Ambassadors, seeing news like this transpire just lets them open the floodgates in the thinly-veiled favoritism.
Even seeing guys like Daniel Ahmed basically console war for brownie points on Twitter, these people are supposed to be professionals but they cannot help themselves in delving into toxicity at the times they should be the most professional. It's embarrassing. People are forgetting there are very real economic factors in place causing these problems, and that Nintendo are not Sony who are not Microsoft. Some companies have a funding style and manufacturing style that favors very conservative spending (Nintendo) to where of course they don't need to raise their prices. Other companies make so much money in massive data-driven markets like cloud, enterprise services and OS (Microsoft) where the comparatively puny revenue and losses their gaming operation brings, has effectively no impact on their main revenue streams. So, If their total hardware production operating income is like $1 billion/FY and they now have to pay a 30% increase due to inflation on that, that is still only $1.3 billion/FY for a company with an operating income of some $70 billion. That $1.3 billion is NOTHING to them.
Sony are unique in that they produce higher-performance hardware and software with much less profit margins than Nintendo and even Microsoft (gaming-wise), but don't have the security blanket of Azure/Office/Windows that Microsoft does, meaning the inflation costs hit them harder than both. I hate that when these facts are brought up, some people act like they are excuses. They aren't. And it doesn't mean I have to like the price increases, I don't think anyone does. However, it IS important to keep this stuff in mind to at least understand why one company increases costs in response, and others don't.
Again, I think Sony could've gone about it better via bundles replacing standalone systems in larger volumes at a higher price. They should've paired the price increase news with something they know fans have been wanting to see for a while now, like some gameplay from GOW Ragnarok or a teaser reveal for a new 1P AAA IP, things we KNOW are in development and on the way, in theory anyway. A DualSense Edge reveal was not going to be enough to soften the delivery of the price increase news.
But some of the wild takes I've been seeing, from people suddenly saying PS5 will sell less than PS3, to (supposedly) Japanese PC gamers portbegging for FF XVI, to people likening the news to the XBO reveal or MS's response as their "This is how you share games" moment. I don't care so much that randoms online are saying that kind of stuff, they always do. The problem is when people supposedly well-respected in the industry and community as voices with large platforms and influence are doing it in ways to obviously egg on console wars toxicity.
That's the stuff I genuinely despise because it's like, if you're not going to be responsible with your platform and your reach, you don't deserve it IMO.
Also for how busy on Twitter some Xbox Ambassadors and corporate types like Aaron and Phil are, knowing full well they can see some of the toxicity spreading around posts of theirs and those of people they follow, for all they talk about unity and ending fanboyism and everyone coming together, apparently that only extends to anything which could be perceived negative towards the Xbox brand. If it's anything that can be weaponized against PlayStation, the gloves are off and these same types pretend like they see nothing, no voicing of togetherness.
Because of course there wouldn't be, when it directly benefits the optics and public perception of your own brand in contrast. I respect that from a business POV, but at least be honest about it and don't go preaching the kumbaya stuff when you want to deflect from your own stuff when that goes wrong. When that happens, just shut up and take the heat, that's what Sony pretty much have to do now.
Sorry for the mini-rant.
The other thing I don't hear you mention is that if a game isn't fun it won't matter what the price is. Lower pricing for consoles and software is good for gamers. Lower prices means more people playing. More people playing means a bigger ecosystem and more support from more developers. More developers means increased competition which leads to higher quality games overall. I'm thinking you are looking at things a bit short-sightedly.
We have a history of console gaming that shows this isn't inherently true. MegaDrive and its games were cheaper in Japan than Super Famicom, yet SFC outsold it in that territory over 4:1. The Dreamcast reached a point where Sega were effectively giving it away for free by mid-2001 with subscriptions to SegaNET...and it was still being outsold in NPD several months by the PS1.
The PS3 reached a point where it not only had built-in Blu-Ray, wifi, etc. but also free online, but was also available at or near the cost of the 360 in NA...yet 360 continued to dominate it in the US for that console generation. Microsoft has basically enabled a buy-once, play-anywhere policy with their 1P games for Xbox & PC, yet several releases post-2015 have seen lower and lower sales even with more platforms available to play those games on.
The point is, lower costs don't mean much if the customers don't perceive the value to be worth the cost, regardless how expensive OR cheap something is. Newgrounds and other flash game sites are completely free, but I doubt they have more player counts than Steam, Switch, Xbox, or PlayStation, even if just looking at the non F2P games.
With Microsoft, they still need to convince many people outside of the Xbox ecosystem, that they have enough quality at a high enough quality and variety, to where those people will consider investing into the ecosystem. That isn't saying Xbox doesn't have quality software: the Forza games are generally very good, SoT has its fans and is unique among live-service games, they have some good RTS games and Flight Sim is top of its class (albeit there aren't many around), but that's not enough of a good variety. At least those games ARE exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem, though, because that's another factor.
And we still have no real way of gauging if MS 1P as a whole will reach that point. TBF, Sony's 1P could use a bit more variety too IMO, I'd like to see a return of stuff like Echochrome, Motorstorm, UmJammer/Parappa, Tomba!, even Jet Moto etc. or weird stuff like Mr. Mosquito, JRPGs like Dark Cloud etc. to balance out the Uncharteds, Gran Turismos, TLOUs, God of Wars, and Spiderman type of games. There's some voids left by certain 3P IP no longer around too like Katamari Damacy that would be neat to see new spins on and a 1P take is probably the best chance of that happening. And I also think Sony will have to get more aggressive with 3P deals for PS+; even if that means they don't have as many Day 1 releases, they could do better deals with bigger 3P releases and lock down Game Trails a month in advance of release of the game on PS and other platforms, for example. They have to consider things like that going forward.
I doubt that Microsoft lowers the price too but they did a sale for Xbox One during the November/December Holidays and then go back to MSRP in early January. So while not a permanent price cut, it would be more of a sale price because if you're looking at $500+ in other regions and in some cases, the games are $125+, that's a lot of money to be spending on gaming especially if it's someone with responsibilities and high expenses. With GOWR releasing in the second week of November, Microsoft coming out late October and saying that between November 1st and December 31st, you can get a Series X/S for $400/$200, they would sell every single console in my opinion especially in other regions because if you're talking a few hundred dollars more, a lot of people will simply be like, fuck that shit.
Yeah, they probably will hit 33m or at least get close to it. I agree in regards to showing single player games from their studios but compared to last year, im honestly expecting more of an emphasis on their live service games and PSVR 2 at this year's showcase.
$400/$200 for Series X and S timed for GOW Ragnarok would still be potentially too drastic, they also don't want to signal any optics as if they are scared or doing something that could make them look weak, even if such a drastic price drop would only be temporary as a promotional price. There is also the very real issue that they could be seen as price fixing the systems by undercutting their nearest rival so much when the same economic factors of inflation are hitting them both.
MS trying to take advantage of that knowing such a fact could make them look a bit greedy and it could also affect the ABK acquisition as well as whatever conditions are placed on them to ensure it goes through, especially if them doing such a thing created a very obvious immediate effect of weakening PS5 sales. Main reason being, because the sales gained with Series in that event would have been primarily driven by customer demand not so much off the foundation of actual product offerings, but off of MS taking advantage of a hostile economic environment and leveraging it manipulatively against a much smaller corporate competitor.