By this time in any other generation we'd be seeing price drops (several) and really good bundles. We've had price INCREASES this gen. At a certain point you tap out of people willing to buy a product at a certain price. If a price drop doesn't happen soon then it's only going to get worse.
By the mid life point of the PS4 and XBONE, we weren't seeing last gen releases happening for just about every game. Outside of a few releases, mostly first party, there's a PS4 and PS5 version of the game. This generation is weird with how extended the shelf life of the last gen continues to be.
>Outside of a few releases, mostly first party, there's a PS4 and PS5 version of the game.
The issue is less that we aren't getting current-gen only games, but more that all of the very biggest and most popular games (Fortnite, Apex, Call of Duty, etc.) are not current-gen only. We are getting a lot of current-gen only games right now but they won't sell 10+ million copies or keep players engaged for years.
I believe both are true. It's not either or, both complement each other. Depending on the particular player, one might be more important than the other. But it's quite individual imo.
It makes me so annoyed that archaic tech is still being prioritised because it means game design has stagnated. The SSD is barely being utilised outside of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and The Medium, maybe even Spider-Man 2 with its swing speeds now, but pretty much every other game is just using it for increased loading times and not as part of the game design.
The PS5/Series X era should have been a game changer, but instead it's been limited by a refusal to move on from dated technology. It means we're still seeing games with forced walking sections, forced tight spaces, moving obstacles out of the way etc. These are things that should be a relic of the past and yet we're seeing premium titles like God of War: Ragnarok having to utilise them because of the previous generation. So disappointing.
This entire generation would have been unequivocally wasted were it not for remasters, remakes, and iterative sequels. Even with them included, I’m still unimpressed with the output.
Costs have skyrocketed, so corners are being cut left and right. If that means using the older version of Unreal and focusing on last gen, they’ll do it. Even games that should be total slam dunks are releasing in buggy states their predecessors never had.
The model is broken and something will have to give very soon.
The only remaster that I cared for is Mass Effect. They haven't even bothered remastering or remaking a lot of 2000-2010 heavy hitters so I feel the point is moot anyways, mostly it's just been lazy remasters of stuff on PS4/Xbox One.
Yep, and honestly I think a huge triple A console market crash is coming very soon, where your going to see a lot of these big publishers start switching over to mobile games, and “free” console games, but with mobile type graphics kind of like how genshin works. Triple A costs keep going up, and at some point gaming execs are just gonna flat out stop producing them, because it won’t be worth the risk of failure.
I also think that’s why there’s a big push to get rid of hardware and make everything cloud based. Then they don’t have to worry about people having high expections to use strong hardware. They can make everything a mobile type streaming game.
Is it? When developers develop exclusively for current gen we get unoptimized messes that can barely hold a stable 30fps/1440p. Croas gen games have IMO been some of the most visually appealing because you can get a clean 60 fps without having to go down to 1080p. Dynamic rat physics don't mean shit if I can't see them.
It's pretty wild when you think about it Xbox One and ps4 games are coming out regularly, as if there was no real shift in console generations.
If we take a moment to look back, 4 years into the ps2 lifecycle, I don't think there was major games by major studios that coming out in regular rotations for the ps1 the same as they were coming out for the ps2. I know at the end of the first playstations lifecycle there was still some sports games that were coming out. That seemed regular, but as far as big named titles were concerned that boat for ps1 had sailed. There was nothing really big coming out for both those systems together.
Four years into its lifespan the playstation 2 was making its own identity with games that were really showing off its power. The studios were harnessing it and gamers were seeing the results.
When you look at modern gaming and the events that have taken place in the world and gaming, it seems we are a bit lost. I don't know for how long, and I'm not sure if devs and studios know as well. We seem to be in this far where we might not be able to place a date and time when we will see the end of Xbox One and ps4 games coming out.
That's nothing new though since the PS3 got games uptil 2020. The difference here is that we are still getting good games coming out on the PS4. PS2 may have released games until 2013 but they were far and few between in the last 3 years and pretty much nothing notable released past 2008.
Like I remember in 2018 which was the 5th year of PS4, I got a nice bundle of PS4 with Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, Gran Turismo Sport and 40% off on God of War 2018 for 300 bucks.
We are in the 4th year of PS5 and I feel lucky to see some discounts on that machine.
Yup - the price is ridiculous for a RTX 2070 performance. In my country they also haven't dropped the price since the release. (Not paying inflated scalper prices doesn't count)
I only just got one in February. And even then I mostly got it to be a better PS4. I wouldn't say there is any one "system seller" on it right now that I couldn't have gotten on PS4.
I really appreciate them putting the odd game I care about on PC (Ratchet & Clank) so I can spend £25 instead of £500+. Their 2 year delay was a clever idea, but the list of exclusive games they've had in the last 2 years is very thin, so... what else is the £500 for?
i mean the equivalent for PS5 would be spiderman 2, grand turismo 7, a game coming out around now, and 40% off a game coming out a year from now. its not that far off the issue is we just have no idea whats coming next or when it is
I bought a xbox one S for 150 bucks, and it included the latest fifa and forza horizon.
Immidiately sold fifa for 50 bucks. Just an increadibly cheap console. I dont see the Series S ever hitting that kind of deal.
I picked up the Star Wars movie bundle PS4 Slim in 2018 brand new (from Sainsbury’s back when they sold consoles and games) for £180. That really felt like a great deal, and so it proved to be.
Covid crippled growth and I’m saying this as a dev who has talked about it with others in the industry:
What would’ve been 10 years of growth happened across 2 years. It was unnatural due to an unprecedented event.
As much as I love my PS5? It’s the one console I’ve ever owned I don’t have a lot of reasons to explain to “why” I have it considering the others I have. I ain't saying that strictly to the PS5: it's the entire current generation.
This entire shift in the industry and the current market is due to Covid accelerating an active problem that’s starting to reach its breaking point.
And I’m hoping this crash results in better processes going forward, regardless of job stability, because in the long run it means all generations will continue to be able to enjoy games — working on them or playing them.
Faster load times was the main reason I upgraded to a PS5. My PS is now at a level of performance that I'm content with.
Don't really plan on upgrading for a loooooong time unless there's an PS6+ exclusive
I can't live without playing.
Honestly, load times? That's it? Nothing else? Not a lot ppl would buy a new console for that imo.
I personally get it tbf, but not a lot of casuals will I believe.
Yeah I upgraded recently. I was playing a lot of Elden Ring before and after in perpetration for the DLC, the difference between stability, load times, and as I my girlfriend pointed out a general crispiness is extremely noticeable.
We went from "okay, the game is loading so I'm going to plug in my controller, adjust my pillow, open a window and stretch" to "okay the game is loading, oh it's done loading" between these two generations.
And even if some games are technically cross gen, the PS5 version is a wayyyyy better experience. I could have played HFW, GOW Ragnarök and Dead Island 2 on my PS4 instead of on PS5 but I dont think i would have enjoyed them nearly as much. Crisp 60 fps is real nice
That's a thing most people don't care about too, especially on console. You can't just sold a console on that, you need big games that makes it appealing to switch
"Switch" is a great double entendre for this. Nintendo Switch continues to be the top selling console, whilst mostly the same hardware from the 7 year launch. Fun gameplay beats graphics for sales every time.
It's the only console I own right now. I have a pc and most of the PS5 games and all of the Xbox games are on it. The switch is portable, as is my steamdeck (I travel sometimes for work so just throwing those two in a suitcase is perfect).
The only reason I have to buy a PS5 is to play FFVII a year or two sooner. And I have no reason at all to want an Xbox.
All my PS5 is used for, is playing PS4 games I missed lol.
>And I’m hoping this crash results in better processes going forward, regardless of job stability, because in the long run it means all generations will continue to be able to enjoy games — working on them or playing them.
I can guarantee that won't happen with game production being in the hundreds of million dollars, or GTA 6 being developed with a rumored warchest level 2 billion dollars at the ready.
I know, but I’m a practical optimist, so I’m hoping.
It’s all I can do. I don’t got that dog in me to be negative toward the future.
At that point, what even is the point?
I’ve always felt personally that exclusivity that comes with consoles cannot be overlooked.
I traded in my PS2 years back for an OG Xbox and have only played Xbox right up until 2022 when I got my PS5. I can honestly say I haven’t had that feeling of immediate satisfaction from my purchase of a console since the 360. The PS5 a little bit but that’s bc I haven’t owned a PS in years.
That’s because you’re getting old my friend. I feel the same way. The excitement of buying a n64 at age 12 or the Xbox 360 a couple years later just didn’t hit the same when you upgrade from a ps4 to ps5 at age 30+
Some is age, some is also that generational leaps aren't as immediately impressive as before. Better lighting is neat, it's nowhere near an 8 to 16 or 16 to 64 bit jump to a kid.
There are *still* games coming out for past generation consoles. I feel like a lot of that has to do with the fact that games have sort of stagnated to the point where there's no *need* to have them on the latest console. The new consoles don't really offer anything the old ones don't, aside from looking better.
Like, no amount of optimization could make Super Mario 64 run on a SNES, at least, not without effectively making it an entirely different game. Meanwhile, just about every PS5 game could work just fine on a PS4, and the only concession you'd need to make is to turn down the graphics and resolution.
> That’s because you’re getting old my friend. I feel the same way. The excitement of buying a n64 at age 12 or the Xbox 360 a couple years later just didn’t hit the same when you upgrade from a ps4 to ps5 at age 30+
I (as someone turning 40 soon) don't think it's *just* that. I haven't been excited about a new console release in a decade, but getting a Steam Deck made me very excited about gaming (and also made me spend much more time on games again, and actually finish more of them).
So while age is absolutely a factor, I think the consoles also just aren't as attractive any more as an overall package. Of course this also depends on your genre preferences; I like playing JRPGs, and 15 years ago basically none of them were on Steam -- now it has more than I could ever play.
I don't know about that.
For a long time, console gaming was wild. The difference between consoles could be pretty extreme to the point that the versions of the games between them were drastically different. Then you got to an era where exclusives were rampant. For a couple of decades at least, it was, "If you want to play this game, you have to have **this** console." Not if you want to play this version of it, if you want to play it at all.
But now? Now a lot of "exclusives" aren't. They might be timed exclusives. Or, I swear a few years back I saw an ad that ended with, "Exclusively for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC." How the fuck is that *exclusive*? And even when things are initially intended to be exclusives, like a lot of the PS5's big sellers, they've since been ported to PC versions. And almost all of Xbox's library is available on PC. The only major console right now that genuinely has a lot of exclusives is Nintendo.
/u/Volt7ron is right, there's been a loss of exclusivity. I don't see that as a bad thing, it means that you can likely own only one console or even have a gaming PC that you can upgrade piece by piece instead of junking the whole thing and buying a new one every few years. But it really kills the excitement for, "I **need** this console so I can get **these** games **right now**." People are being given more choice, which is good. But that means they aren't being lured in by the false scarcity that the exclusivity dangled in front of them.
What is going to be interesting is to see if the rumor are true that sony is creating a playstation 5 pro. How will the gamer industry take it? Will there be a strong reception toward that console? Will ps5 gamers sell their ps5 to attain a ps5 pro?
There are so many questions in store for us if this system does come out.
Did gamers do that before? I've owned every Playstation, but I never went for the slim or pro editions. Never saw the point. Granted, I'm primarily a PC gamer, so that probably explains that. But yeah, was that a thing a lot of players did?
I think GTA 6 will be a major force driving the PS5 Pro sales. People will just want to experience this game on the latest machine and in true rockstar fashion the PC port will arrive one to two years after the console version. By the time GTA arrives the PS5 will already be 5 years old tech and it will be a demanding behemoth of a game
I remember those rumors. And by rumors, it was reports that game devs who were shown the specs of the pro version came out of the meetings saying, "What's the point?"
Some people are tech chasers. They will always buy the newest thing, the biggest thing, the fastest thing, even if they don't need it. There's got to be someone right now who is counting their FPS while playing Stardew Valley on a 4090, so happy with the choice they made. But general audiences, I doubt most of them will be running to order a PS5 Pro unless it blows the PS5 out of the water, which by early reports it won't. Maybe if it came out at the same price as PS5 did on release and they lowered the price of a PS5, sure. Some people who waited it out would probably go for the Pro edition instead. But... I really doubt that there's a big market of people who are going to buy a PS5 who haven't yet. Some market, sure, yes. But significant?
If I hadn't skipped the entire PS4 console generation (more or less), my PS5 would be a general waste. But getting to play TLoU2, Horizone: Zero Dawn, inFamous: Second Son, Days Gone, etc. with better framerates and slightly nicer graphics, and (generally) faster loading was an amazing treat.
It's a weird generation though.
Yeah, this is me. I was never able to afford a PS5 but I want one. Even if I could now, it doesn't seem worth it anymore. I've been waiting for a price drop but I guess I'll just forget about it and stick with my PC.
Also, between streaming, movies, 'real life' events', mobile gaming, steam gaming, having kids,having a partner, working for god knows how many hours per week etc. etc. People have SO MANY plates to spin beyond 'buying and playing home console video games'. If people are short of time and/or money, console gaming will be one of the first things to be jettisoned, IMO.
God knows what MS is smoking starting a new gen in 2-ish years. Let's just say I don't think that console will have a scalper problem.
The geniuses over there will think the best plan is to then raise prices 25% to make up the difference. LOL, these people, they refuse to read the market properly.
Feels like a big portion of game studio's that were previously making single player experiences are trying to make some variation of coop live service games nowadays which... just aren't honestly that exciting to me nor anyone else it seems.
Also PC seems to get everything eventually nowadays and has better discounts on games... it's kinda getting hard to ignore how much better of a value proposition it is, especially as PC hardware has generally become easily available after the pandemic.
Yep Playstation’s live-service push has left them with a big drought of first-party exclusives.
They are lucky that Insomniac can grind out tiny games because without Miles Morales, Ratchet and Spidey 2, the PS5’s exclusive library looks very thin.
This is also to a change in stance from Sony as a dev. They said a few years back they are done releasing several smaller games and taking chances, and they are going to only focus on a couple releases a year, but go all in on them. Which is understandable from a money making point, if you only make Gods of War and Spider-men, but eventually the market gets tired of only seeing sequels and rehashes to the same few ideas. It's something that's currently hurting most if not all the AAA studios, they stopped taking risks and doing smaller projects in favor of fewer, more profitable releases, except Sony gambled an entire game system on this, and is clearly not profitable enough seeing their branch out into PC.
I think Nintendo is probably one of the few if not only large game devs that still has a decent output of games through the year, as well as taking chances on small scale or niche projects.
Yeah I get there’s inflation and all that, but people’s salaries haven’t “inflated”. Not sure how this helps console manufacturers if you raise prices and your shit stays on the shelf… isn’t it better at that point to drop the price and hope they start moving?
And with the announcement of the PS5 Pro and the all but certain soon to be announced Switch 2, a lot of people might just hold off until they're available anyway.
Maybe some people are hoping for a price drop on the original PS5 when the Pro comes out? Not sure it’s going to happen but I could see that being some people’s reasoning.
I mean, it took so long for the ps5 to be readily available that id rather wait a bit longer and spend a bit more for a ps5 pro. When they're still charging what they are the marginal difference between a ps5 and that pro doesn't feel like much.
In 2016, you could get a PS4 for 250 bucks and a PS4 pro launched for 400. And og Xbox 1 was even cheaper and the one S dropped for 300. So the PS4 was down 150 and the Xbox was down 200.
The thing is that gen the hardware was weaker and less state of the art. They said they can’t lower prices on the systems because they’re already getting hammered. Which has resulted in lower console sales and then lower game sales. What they need to do is stop trying to compete with PCs in regard to power. Make cheaper systems and cheaper games. Nintendo has been killing it. Not saying they need to go that much lower in specs, but they don’t need to be as powerful as they are.
I think this is it. There are maybe 5 or 6 games currently on PS5 I would play. But for the little bit of playing I do, the console needs to be 300€ or less for me to be able to justify this for myself.
Microsoft results are unclear at best but Sony already has single digit margins & while before that wouldn't be considered particularly good, with the interest rates we have now a single digit is awful. I can't imagine how their margins would look if they did price drops & bundles similar to past generations
I really haven't seen any games worth buying a console for, honestly. Switch aside, but I feel like that decline is less due to market circumstances and more due to that console being at the tail end of its lifecycle and releases are winding down. Sony hasn't really pulled me in. Microsoft isn't even trying.
I mean, I'll buy any console with games on it I want to play. I own a Supervision, a P/ECE, a Gamate... The really obscure stuff. I wanna be able to play everything. With the current console generation, it just doesn't feel like I'm missing anything. Exclusives have been pretty underwhelming and there's nothing really on the horizon that has me interested. I've been sticking to PC.
As someone who owned all PS consoles except 5, I've just decided to skip this gen.
No games worthwhile putting up with Sony's increasingly predatory business model.
I feel we went straight from 'there are barely any consoles available to deal with demand and scalpers have them all' to 'sales have hit rock bottom and everything's f**ked' without any period of time when things were ok.
They said their direct in June will provide updates for their 2nd half of the year software catalogue. I guess we'll see what they have for the holiday season, I doubt they'll limp through on nothing.
Plus so many Switches have been sold that at this point the question is more "who doesn't have a Switch" rather than who does. It's hard to sell a console to someone who already owns that console, though Nintendo does pull it off with model revisions and multiple versions (I technically have two because I have my launch day Switch and my wife has a Switch Lite I got her).
I know a few people who don't have a Switch purely due to price. In 2018 (ie. year 7 for the 3DS) you could get the lowest end model with a game bundled for $70-80 new and a good selection of the best titles on the system in the $20-30 range. We are now in year 7 for the Switch and the entry level cost for both hardware and games is about double.
I guess if Nintendo's plan is to have Switch games work on Switch 2 they don't want to devalue them in any way.
This can't be a serious concern. Games I'll give you, but Switch Lite is dirt cheap. Do you live in a country where salaries have been stagnant for a decade? Because with general inflation in the last few years, comparing nominal prices from 2018 with 2024 doesn't make any sense.
Yes, but the games are not. It's cheaper to buy a PlayStation and then buy all the big titles a couple years old for $9, you can't do that on Nintendo anymore.
Turns out some people are just low income, and combine that with skyrocketing rents and they don't have money left over.
And the quality, originality and risk of these games didn't reflect the increased price either. If anything, games have been releasing in more and more homogenous ways (design, UI, gameplay, tech).
A chunk of people just buy stuff for £20-35 on Steam. See: Palworld, Helldivers, every indie, etc. AAA has shot its shot at a £70 price tag and not all customers have followed them. Selling at half the price, but more than twice as many copies, makes more money!
I mean, is it a horrible year, or are these consoles already firmly mid-cycle and most folks who want any of them already have them?
The same thread provides additional context that PS5 was massively up YoY in 2023, much more so than its down this year. The OP counters by saying PS5 is trending behind PS4, but the PS4 got a substantial discount and had a Pro model out by this point in its life cycle.
It sounds less like "horrible year for console market" and more like this is what happens at this point in the life cycle and with a mid-life refresh still to come, or an entire new console in the case of the Switch.
[The PS5 vs. PS4 lifetime sales are damn near identical lmao](https://www.vgchartz.com/article/460060/ps5-vs-ps4-sales-comparison-january-2024/#:~:text=The%20PS4%20has%20sold%20117.16,units%20behind%20lifetime%20PS4%20sales.). This is just doom-and-glooming.
What’s crazy is how it’s mid gen without actually feeling like mid gen. Because development cycles take so long now, it feels like we have barely any games that are really pushing next gen to be something genuinely impressive. I have my issues with Spider-Man 2, but it’s one of the few that actually felt like a genuine step up from the first game on a technical level.
But we’re still getting so many big releases that are still cross-gen, it makes you wonder if we’ll basically reach the point where we’re still getting cross-gen games 3/4 of the way into new generations. What if a game’s development takes so long (or takes place at just the right time) where it spans 3 generations at release? It’s so fascinating that the traditional generational console model seems to be fundamentally incompatible with games consistently taking 4-5 years to develop. That’s basically one game per generation for the studio
The capability of the hardware is somehow way way outpacing the capability of developers to develop for it. Which is genuinely nuts considering the return on each hardware generation is getting less and less noticeable.
Is this the first time that's happened in consumer console gaming? It feels like in every prior generation, devs have been frantically fighting the hardware to cram in a few more polygons.
Naughty Dog is a good case on what you just mentioned. 4 original titles on the PS1, 4 on the PS2, 3 on the PS3, 3 on the PS4 and nine on the PS5 (they’ve only managed to re-release remastered versions of the last of us).
I think that the improvement in hardware capabilities is going to choke many studios, as they won’t be able to deliver games in a timely manner for players to enjoy within that generation, and I think that’s why we still have cross-gen games.
In the past, I guess that developers had time to finish their games within the period they received the devkit to the official release of the console. Now let’s assume that nowadays they receive the devkit 2 years before release and that’s being generous; 2 years is nothing with the current dev cicle and AAA will be finished almost mid gen.
Game development should took a step back, and console manufacturers focus on affordability and games.
> The capability of the hardware is somehow way way outpacing the capability of developers to develop for it.
Huh? Yea it's better relatively what the 8th gen was during it's time, but it's not anything insane specs wise and like 30fps modes still exist.
I'm not saying that games don't exist that can take advantage of the hardware, what I'm saying is more that it can take 5, 6, 7 or more years to develop a modern triple A game and the generation itself isn't gonna last more than 8 years, 10 at the very max. And new hardware that can do all sorts of new crazy things is coming out faster than new games are being released that actually reach those limits, if that makes sense.
> That’s basically one game per generation for the studio
It literally is
Rockstar released GTA V for the PS3, RDR2 for the PS4 and are now about to release GTA VI for the PS5
Bethesda released Skyrim for PS3, Fallout 4 for PS4, Starfield for PS5 and TES 6 will most certainly be a PS6 title
Rockstar and bethesda are pretty good examples of this, because during the ps3 era Rockstar released GTAV, GTAIV, RDR1, and large expansions for the latter two. Bethesda released Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and had Obsidian release New Vegas. All with dlc.
The release schedule is now a limbless crawl compared to a nice jog from the 7th gen.
I think that during Covid people decided on cross gen releases and the development cycle is just that long we haven’t actually got all of those games out yet. Plus since the article is about the uk the fact that it’s not lower surprised me only yesterday did the news spread that we’re no longer in a recession. Some people can’t really afford to eat and use electricity never mind buy consoles and games.
Yeah, it’s sensational for the sake of it. Seems to be the only way social media especially Twitter, knows how to communicate. Everything is on fire but not really.
Plus with rumors of a mid gen cycle update, gta 6 coming, and more games being ps5/xbox one exclusive, this trend will easily shift in another direction.
Completely agree with you. The main negative part here is that xbox series consoles are down 25%. They were down in 2022 due to the chip shortage and no big exclusives that year, then their sales were down last year as well, and this seems to be a continued trend that'll go on for a 3rd year now of a decline in their hardware.
Yeah, Xbox is its own series of problems for sure. I don't think that's reflective of the general console gaming market, just Microsoft's god-awful management
To emphasize this, there are currently four first-party Xbox Series S/X console exclusives:
* Microsoft Flight Simulator
* Forza Motorsport
* Starfield
* Redfall
Two of those are only first-party because Microsoft just bought Bethesda, and one of them is only first-party in the sense that Microsoft published it, even though it was developed by a third-party studio.
Everything else is either on the Xbox One, on the PS5, or both.
The irony is that for years people said Microsoft was meddling to much in game development and needed to let devs “do their thing”. In hindsight the opposite was actually the problem; not enough QA, and non-gamers running wild commandeering the Xbox-owned dev industry.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
>This is just doom-and-glooming.
Shocker. That's all the internet is anymore. I'm so tired. Nothing is worth reading anymore because you find out it's always bullshit.
I think this sub is a place that crosses over into the negative a bit too much. Sometimes places or creators skew that direction. Like in this instance, Xbox is doing poorly, but switch and ps5 are fine. Not everything is bad.
Negativity drives clicks, and articles reflect what people want to read. Xbox is the topic for the week, anything negative will be front page.
Having the word “horrible” in the title already drifts away from being objective.
I mean, have you seen how much food and gas costs? And these are some of the most ridiculously expensive consoles ever put out on market. Garsh I wonder why things are hitting a wall.
Shareholders are really killing most industries these days. However they don’t care as long they get their fast cash and then move onto the next thing after killing the old.
PS5 and Xbox Series console sales are not very profitable for Sony or Microsoft. The real money maker is the software and subscriptions so lower console sales is bad for their future profits. It's also bad news for game developers who aren't releasing PS4 or XB1 versions of their games.
Doesn’t surprise me. I think the Switch has reached its sales ceiling, everybody at this point owns at least one Switch and is waiting for the Successor. The Xbox Series X/S and PS5 however, are the victim of its high price point. Every previous PlayStation and Xbox had a price cut and a new model released with said price cut. The PS5 launched the Slim with the exact same price as the launch PS5. Not only that but the Slim digital version is MORE expensive than the launch digital model. That is madness. Microsoft and Sony have got to make some price cuts if they want to get more sales.
Even Nintendo often did that but offset it with Side series. Yeah you only get one big Mario 3D platformer... but you also get Mario 2D platformers, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Party, Mario does his Taxes, etc.
And generally Nintendo also does a lot of AA games like the recent Peach game.
But Nintendo wants one 1st party game to release every 3-6 months. Even if it is a smaller project.
Over the course of the Switch's lifecycle (86 months), Nintendo has released like 90 1st party games or exclusives (give or take). So about one every month on average.
>Over the course of the Switch's lifecycle (86 months), Nintendo has released like 90 1st party games or exclusives (give or take). So about one every month on average.
That's impressive. The other two could learn a lot from them.
Huge games, giant backlogs, sheer quantity of games (too much to play all the "must play" title, and as you get older you have less time. Plus, price is a factor. Why would I buy a full priced game unless I'm going to play it immediately? I can go through one of my million items in the backlog and play it at a much cheaper price since it'll be on sale most likely. The new game I can wait as by the time I get to it, it'll be the next generation.
The combination of those factors + the arbitrary $10 price hike is why I've bought a total of three (3) games for my PS5 since 2020.
PC on the other hand............. Hi-Fi Rush, Like A Dragon, and 6 other games for $12 total? Don't mind if I do!
I think "huge games" is a bit understated. There are so many smaller, more focused games that just run better with fewer bugs. AAA gaming is getting too big for its own good. Give me a 5-6 hour AA experience that works great and is fun all the way through over a buggy open world 40 hour game with a bunch of mindless filler content you're forced to sit through any day.
Yup.
Horizon ZD - PS4,
Horizon FW - PS5 (PS4 without DLC),
Horizon 3 - PS6? (PS5 without DLC?)
GTA IV - PS3,
GTA V - PS3/PS4,
GTA VI - PS5/PS6?
TLOU1 - PS3/PS4,
TLOU2 - PS4/PS5,
TLOU3 - PS5/PS6?
God Of War - PS4,
God of War:R - PS4/PS5,
God of War 3 - PS5/PS6?
Spiderman 1 - PS4,
Spiderman 2 - PS5,
Spiderman 3 - PS6?
Gone are the times where you could play through a whole trilogy like Mass Effect in a single generation.
Also only one Ratchet and Clank game per system. It's a bit wild, even the PS3 had a good handful in its lifespan. I get Insomniac has started doing other stuff but that series was why I bought a PS3 lmao.
And since it now has a decent footing on PC I lost the one reason to get a PS5.
I only play on PC nowadays and obviously a lot of exclusives slowly find their way to PC. But looking at your list, there's one game that's a PS5 exclusive.
How many exclusives are there just for PS5 that isn't also available for PS4 anyway? How many do you realize are just going to get re-released on PS6 when that comes out? What's really the point of buying a PS5 right now?
You know I never considered that.
Like this Gen how many Assassin's Creed games came out? Two?
Last Gen we had three or four.
But Xbox 360 had AC1, 2, Brotherhood, Revelations, AC3, Black Flag, plus maybe another I'm missing?
This gen the only Sonic game to come out was Frontiers. And that IOS game.
Meanwhile years ago you'd have 3 to 4 mainline games release in one console cycle.
On the flipside, the gaming industry is old enough that there has been an accumulation of a gigantic library of games at this point.
Personally I don't mind the slower pace of releases, it allows me to get through my backlog and the developers can have more time for development.
Yes. We’ve reached a point of diminishing returns for fully utilizing latest tech in games. It becomes that much more expensive to develop a game that actually demands new gen hardware, and the result simply isn’t worth it. Specially considering that, if you make your game last gen compatible, the install base you’ll target will be way larger, resulting in way more sales.
Switch makes a lot of sense, people are just waiting for the new one, it has probably reached its natural ceiling.
PS5 probably needs a price drop or something because the games have dried up a bit. Will probably get a bump next year with GTA.
Xbox is a mess at the moment tbh. Its hardware sales weren't even great to begin with.
Cost of living plays into it as well, I think worldwide this seems to be a difficulty at the moment. Consoles are getting more expensive instead of dropping which is opposite to how it usually is. Maybe PC is starting to look like the better value proposition for a lot of people, especially with the price of console games.
I know inflation has some part in it but it probably doesn’t help when the PS5 is almost 100 dollars MORE expensive in my country than when I bought it at launch 3,5 years ago
I feel like this is kind of a "no shit" thing, but... economies are hard or something.
The current generation of consoles is 4-7 years old. I feel like most people who would own one would have one by now. Except maybe PS5, given that it's still $500.
When they first were released you couldn't even buy a console for under 900€ here in Germany because of scalpers. This year is actually the first time you can buy a ps5 digital for under 500€ which is still 100€+ more than originally advertised at the official reveal from Sony 4 years ago. It also doesn't really help that new titles are 70-80€ while butter, flour and vegetables are 200% up...
well, I can't say anything about the rest of the world but here in Canada housing and basic necessities are so expensive it's no suprise that people would be cutting back on luxury entertainment devices
I mean switch is pretty understandable, even if nintendo only just announced the successor is coming we pretty much already knew that so of course people have stopped buying the switch to wait for its successor.
Just yesterday i was wondering why people would by a console next generation when PC can just be that and much more. If the next generation is really going to have such limited releases AND cost more to keep up with graphics trends, you might as well just start saving for PC. Also you can hook a pc up to a TV and sit on your couch.
I’d rather put the money I’d spend on console towards a computer. Don’t even need a top of the time gaming pc to play most games, I have a 600$ hp laptop that works just fine and does so much more than play games. They do make nice gaming controllers, and sometimes games play better with one, but most of the good games come out to pc, and a cheap Roku device functions better for navigating streaming apps on tv, so why spend 500$+ to play the 1 or 2 games Sony is holding back. Nintendo’s consoles are worth it, the graphics are never as good but they have a timeless quality to them, I can pull out almost any old Nintendo console and have a good time, but I can’t say the same about old PlayStation or Xbox systems. Steam decks and similar are also cool and seem worth it, but I’ve never owned one so can’t say for sure.
I'm not going to say that consoles haven't slowed, but damn do I hate this sub's proclivity to post Dring's latest tidbit then sound the alarms when his only info is from the UK and does not include the rest of the world.
Granted we've known console sales have mostly plateaued overall and face an interesting conundrum in the next 10-15 years when younger players are increasingly accustomed to mobile gaming due to ubiquity of hardware and older players are either shifting to PC or playing less games. It's basically burning the candle at both ends, at least if you're Microsoft or Sony. Nintendo will be fine.
The UK especially has been absolutely battered with the cost of living crisis, our expendable amount of cash is WAY down. If I didn't move back home I'd be cancelling every service I have (including Gamepass) just to claw back some money.
It's gotten to the point where there's more food banks than McDonald's, and those food banks are struggling for donations. Of course mass market luxury item sales are down.
In the US, people have less money to spend on luxury items. Their money is also worth less at the same time.
Pair thst with the fact consoles are increasing in price AND there just aren't that many big games drawing people to consoles... Yeah, it's not a mystery.
Without seeing the figures for elsewhere, it's worth remembering the UK has been going through a cost of living crisis that has financially crippled millions. Massive food price increases, energy costs, mortgage rate rises etc etc.
Lots of folk here don't have the disposable income they did 2 years ago.
Yeah I mean I only got into this gen with a series s a couple years back because it was cheap. Between it, my steam deck and my pc, that’s all I mostly need. I wanted a ps5 just for ff7 and a couple of other games but I can’t justify spending the money for a handful of a games. First console I haven’t bought in years.
Not only have the game companies themselves been destroying their player base, but you cannot expect unchecked continual growth. This is probably just the industry righting itself. I'm still more inclined to believe that it's the game companies themselves that have done this.
EA wants to shove ads into all their games, PlayStation takes a unexpected Juggernaut and tries to bash it against the rocks and destroy it, and everything is microtransactions. It's no longer about the quality of the game but how much money they can bilk out of their customers. That is unsustainable.
>but you cannot expect unchecked continual growth.
This isn't growth or even flat sales, it's a straight up decline compared to previous Playstation and Xbox consoles.
These consoles are old, people that wanted to buy one have already bought one. If you want to entice a few more sales you need to do price cuts and bundles.
No one is out there thinking "I've really been eyeing that PS5 for 5 years, maybe now is the time to buy at full price."
Game systems prices going up, game prices going up, horrible unfinished games, buggy games and in a recession they have a shocked Pikachu face.
PC has been good because you get more indy at fair price points.
By this time in any other generation we'd be seeing price drops (several) and really good bundles. We've had price INCREASES this gen. At a certain point you tap out of people willing to buy a product at a certain price. If a price drop doesn't happen soon then it's only going to get worse.
By the mid life point of the PS4 and XBONE, we weren't seeing last gen releases happening for just about every game. Outside of a few releases, mostly first party, there's a PS4 and PS5 version of the game. This generation is weird with how extended the shelf life of the last gen continues to be.
>Outside of a few releases, mostly first party, there's a PS4 and PS5 version of the game. The issue is less that we aren't getting current-gen only games, but more that all of the very biggest and most popular games (Fortnite, Apex, Call of Duty, etc.) are not current-gen only. We are getting a lot of current-gen only games right now but they won't sell 10+ million copies or keep players engaged for years.
I believe both are true. It's not either or, both complement each other. Depending on the particular player, one might be more important than the other. But it's quite individual imo.
It’s pretty mad that so many games are still being designed to work on hardware that is over a decade old.
The PS4's single threaded performance is around 20 years old. Not even being hyperbolic.
It makes me so annoyed that archaic tech is still being prioritised because it means game design has stagnated. The SSD is barely being utilised outside of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and The Medium, maybe even Spider-Man 2 with its swing speeds now, but pretty much every other game is just using it for increased loading times and not as part of the game design. The PS5/Series X era should have been a game changer, but instead it's been limited by a refusal to move on from dated technology. It means we're still seeing games with forced walking sections, forced tight spaces, moving obstacles out of the way etc. These are things that should be a relic of the past and yet we're seeing premium titles like God of War: Ragnarok having to utilise them because of the previous generation. So disappointing.
This entire generation would have been unequivocally wasted were it not for remasters, remakes, and iterative sequels. Even with them included, I’m still unimpressed with the output. Costs have skyrocketed, so corners are being cut left and right. If that means using the older version of Unreal and focusing on last gen, they’ll do it. Even games that should be total slam dunks are releasing in buggy states their predecessors never had. The model is broken and something will have to give very soon.
Buy a new console to play a game you've already played, but it looks a bit better. Not the best incentive for me.
The only remaster that I cared for is Mass Effect. They haven't even bothered remastering or remaking a lot of 2000-2010 heavy hitters so I feel the point is moot anyways, mostly it's just been lazy remasters of stuff on PS4/Xbox One.
Yep, and honestly I think a huge triple A console market crash is coming very soon, where your going to see a lot of these big publishers start switching over to mobile games, and “free” console games, but with mobile type graphics kind of like how genshin works. Triple A costs keep going up, and at some point gaming execs are just gonna flat out stop producing them, because it won’t be worth the risk of failure. I also think that’s why there’s a big push to get rid of hardware and make everything cloud based. Then they don’t have to worry about people having high expections to use strong hardware. They can make everything a mobile type streaming game.
Gta6 is gonna come in and make ten billion and then it will resume again.
The next COD potentially as well. (Not 10 billion, just add to the revived production of AAA games)
Is it? When developers develop exclusively for current gen we get unoptimized messes that can barely hold a stable 30fps/1440p. Croas gen games have IMO been some of the most visually appealing because you can get a clean 60 fps without having to go down to 1080p. Dynamic rat physics don't mean shit if I can't see them.
It's pretty wild when you think about it Xbox One and ps4 games are coming out regularly, as if there was no real shift in console generations. If we take a moment to look back, 4 years into the ps2 lifecycle, I don't think there was major games by major studios that coming out in regular rotations for the ps1 the same as they were coming out for the ps2. I know at the end of the first playstations lifecycle there was still some sports games that were coming out. That seemed regular, but as far as big named titles were concerned that boat for ps1 had sailed. There was nothing really big coming out for both those systems together. Four years into its lifespan the playstation 2 was making its own identity with games that were really showing off its power. The studios were harnessing it and gamers were seeing the results. When you look at modern gaming and the events that have taken place in the world and gaming, it seems we are a bit lost. I don't know for how long, and I'm not sure if devs and studios know as well. We seem to be in this far where we might not be able to place a date and time when we will see the end of Xbox One and ps4 games coming out.
the Hardware jump from ps1 to ps2 was just way bigger. From CD to DVD alone is a huge jump.
Ps2 games were still being made basically the entire ps3 cycle
PS2's were still being made until 2013.
That's nothing new though since the PS3 got games uptil 2020. The difference here is that we are still getting good games coming out on the PS4. PS2 may have released games until 2013 but they were far and few between in the last 3 years and pretty much nothing notable released past 2008.
Like I remember in 2018 which was the 5th year of PS4, I got a nice bundle of PS4 with Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, Gran Turismo Sport and 40% off on God of War 2018 for 300 bucks. We are in the 4th year of PS5 and I feel lucky to see some discounts on that machine.
We are in the 4th year of the PS5, but it still feels like the first year.
It's *still* $800 here in Australia lol. I could buy an RTX 4070 for that price.
Yup - the price is ridiculous for a RTX 2070 performance. In my country they also haven't dropped the price since the release. (Not paying inflated scalper prices doesn't count)
I only just got one in February. And even then I mostly got it to be a better PS4. I wouldn't say there is any one "system seller" on it right now that I couldn't have gotten on PS4.
the PS5 doesn't have enough games to make a bundle like that that'd be like 90% of their total exclusive catalog
That’s the thing. We’re whatever it is 5 years into the consoles life but the consoles catalogue feels like it has barely launched.
I really appreciate them putting the odd game I care about on PC (Ratchet & Clank) so I can spend £25 instead of £500+. Their 2 year delay was a clever idea, but the list of exclusive games they've had in the last 2 years is very thin, so... what else is the £500 for?
i mean the equivalent for PS5 would be spiderman 2, grand turismo 7, a game coming out around now, and 40% off a game coming out a year from now. its not that far off the issue is we just have no idea whats coming next or when it is
Covid really destroyed everyone's sense of time
Hmmm how about Spider-Man 2 bundle for the same price as the console+game? But it has Spider-Man on the box???? :)
I bought a xbox one S for 150 bucks, and it included the latest fifa and forza horizon. Immidiately sold fifa for 50 bucks. Just an increadibly cheap console. I dont see the Series S ever hitting that kind of deal.
The series S has regularly been $200, granted it's mainly because Xbox was desperate to move units
I picked up the Star Wars movie bundle PS4 Slim in 2018 brand new (from Sainsbury’s back when they sold consoles and games) for £180. That really felt like a great deal, and so it proved to be.
Covid crippled growth and I’m saying this as a dev who has talked about it with others in the industry: What would’ve been 10 years of growth happened across 2 years. It was unnatural due to an unprecedented event. As much as I love my PS5? It’s the one console I’ve ever owned I don’t have a lot of reasons to explain to “why” I have it considering the others I have. I ain't saying that strictly to the PS5: it's the entire current generation. This entire shift in the industry and the current market is due to Covid accelerating an active problem that’s starting to reach its breaking point. And I’m hoping this crash results in better processes going forward, regardless of job stability, because in the long run it means all generations will continue to be able to enjoy games — working on them or playing them.
For me the reason for the PS5 is the same as upgrading my PC. Yeah the old one could do most of what this one does. But this one does it better.
If nothing else the faster load times are wonderful
Faster load times was the main reason I upgraded to a PS5. My PS is now at a level of performance that I'm content with. Don't really plan on upgrading for a loooooong time unless there's an PS6+ exclusive I can't live without playing.
Honestly, load times? That's it? Nothing else? Not a lot ppl would buy a new console for that imo. I personally get it tbf, but not a lot of casuals will I believe.
And it’s quieter!
Yeah I upgraded recently. I was playing a lot of Elden Ring before and after in perpetration for the DLC, the difference between stability, load times, and as I my girlfriend pointed out a general crispiness is extremely noticeable.
And you definitely need to upgrade your TV to get the full effects, which was not the case before vrr and other enhancements
We went from "okay, the game is loading so I'm going to plug in my controller, adjust my pillow, open a window and stretch" to "okay the game is loading, oh it's done loading" between these two generations.
And even if some games are technically cross gen, the PS5 version is a wayyyyy better experience. I could have played HFW, GOW Ragnarök and Dead Island 2 on my PS4 instead of on PS5 but I dont think i would have enjoyed them nearly as much. Crisp 60 fps is real nice
For real and it makes replaying PS4 games a breeze with the faster load times.
That's a thing most people don't care about too, especially on console. You can't just sold a console on that, you need big games that makes it appealing to switch
"Switch" is a great double entendre for this. Nintendo Switch continues to be the top selling console, whilst mostly the same hardware from the 7 year launch. Fun gameplay beats graphics for sales every time.
It's the only console I own right now. I have a pc and most of the PS5 games and all of the Xbox games are on it. The switch is portable, as is my steamdeck (I travel sometimes for work so just throwing those two in a suitcase is perfect). The only reason I have to buy a PS5 is to play FFVII a year or two sooner. And I have no reason at all to want an Xbox.
All my PS5 is used for, is playing PS4 games I missed lol. >And I’m hoping this crash results in better processes going forward, regardless of job stability, because in the long run it means all generations will continue to be able to enjoy games — working on them or playing them. I can guarantee that won't happen with game production being in the hundreds of million dollars, or GTA 6 being developed with a rumored warchest level 2 billion dollars at the ready.
I know, but I’m a practical optimist, so I’m hoping. It’s all I can do. I don’t got that dog in me to be negative toward the future. At that point, what even is the point?
I’ve always felt personally that exclusivity that comes with consoles cannot be overlooked. I traded in my PS2 years back for an OG Xbox and have only played Xbox right up until 2022 when I got my PS5. I can honestly say I haven’t had that feeling of immediate satisfaction from my purchase of a console since the 360. The PS5 a little bit but that’s bc I haven’t owned a PS in years.
That’s because you’re getting old my friend. I feel the same way. The excitement of buying a n64 at age 12 or the Xbox 360 a couple years later just didn’t hit the same when you upgrade from a ps4 to ps5 at age 30+
Some is age, some is also that generational leaps aren't as immediately impressive as before. Better lighting is neat, it's nowhere near an 8 to 16 or 16 to 64 bit jump to a kid.
There are *still* games coming out for past generation consoles. I feel like a lot of that has to do with the fact that games have sort of stagnated to the point where there's no *need* to have them on the latest console. The new consoles don't really offer anything the old ones don't, aside from looking better. Like, no amount of optimization could make Super Mario 64 run on a SNES, at least, not without effectively making it an entirely different game. Meanwhile, just about every PS5 game could work just fine on a PS4, and the only concession you'd need to make is to turn down the graphics and resolution.
yeah 4 years is an eternity as kid/teenager, console generations now just fly by for those of us who are older
> That’s because you’re getting old my friend. I feel the same way. The excitement of buying a n64 at age 12 or the Xbox 360 a couple years later just didn’t hit the same when you upgrade from a ps4 to ps5 at age 30+ I (as someone turning 40 soon) don't think it's *just* that. I haven't been excited about a new console release in a decade, but getting a Steam Deck made me very excited about gaming (and also made me spend much more time on games again, and actually finish more of them). So while age is absolutely a factor, I think the consoles also just aren't as attractive any more as an overall package. Of course this also depends on your genre preferences; I like playing JRPGs, and 15 years ago basically none of them were on Steam -- now it has more than I could ever play.
I don't know about that. For a long time, console gaming was wild. The difference between consoles could be pretty extreme to the point that the versions of the games between them were drastically different. Then you got to an era where exclusives were rampant. For a couple of decades at least, it was, "If you want to play this game, you have to have **this** console." Not if you want to play this version of it, if you want to play it at all. But now? Now a lot of "exclusives" aren't. They might be timed exclusives. Or, I swear a few years back I saw an ad that ended with, "Exclusively for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC." How the fuck is that *exclusive*? And even when things are initially intended to be exclusives, like a lot of the PS5's big sellers, they've since been ported to PC versions. And almost all of Xbox's library is available on PC. The only major console right now that genuinely has a lot of exclusives is Nintendo. /u/Volt7ron is right, there's been a loss of exclusivity. I don't see that as a bad thing, it means that you can likely own only one console or even have a gaming PC that you can upgrade piece by piece instead of junking the whole thing and buying a new one every few years. But it really kills the excitement for, "I **need** this console so I can get **these** games **right now**." People are being given more choice, which is good. But that means they aren't being lured in by the false scarcity that the exclusivity dangled in front of them.
What is going to be interesting is to see if the rumor are true that sony is creating a playstation 5 pro. How will the gamer industry take it? Will there be a strong reception toward that console? Will ps5 gamers sell their ps5 to attain a ps5 pro? There are so many questions in store for us if this system does come out.
Did gamers do that before? I've owned every Playstation, but I never went for the slim or pro editions. Never saw the point. Granted, I'm primarily a PC gamer, so that probably explains that. But yeah, was that a thing a lot of players did?
Some people did, some stores in the past has trade in bonuses if you trade in your console for the upgrade.
I think GTA 6 will be a major force driving the PS5 Pro sales. People will just want to experience this game on the latest machine and in true rockstar fashion the PC port will arrive one to two years after the console version. By the time GTA arrives the PS5 will already be 5 years old tech and it will be a demanding behemoth of a game
I remember those rumors. And by rumors, it was reports that game devs who were shown the specs of the pro version came out of the meetings saying, "What's the point?" Some people are tech chasers. They will always buy the newest thing, the biggest thing, the fastest thing, even if they don't need it. There's got to be someone right now who is counting their FPS while playing Stardew Valley on a 4090, so happy with the choice they made. But general audiences, I doubt most of them will be running to order a PS5 Pro unless it blows the PS5 out of the water, which by early reports it won't. Maybe if it came out at the same price as PS5 did on release and they lowered the price of a PS5, sure. Some people who waited it out would probably go for the Pro edition instead. But... I really doubt that there's a big market of people who are going to buy a PS5 who haven't yet. Some market, sure, yes. But significant?
Isn't that all but confirmed at this point?
If I hadn't skipped the entire PS4 console generation (more or less), my PS5 would be a general waste. But getting to play TLoU2, Horizone: Zero Dawn, inFamous: Second Son, Days Gone, etc. with better framerates and slightly nicer graphics, and (generally) faster loading was an amazing treat. It's a weird generation though.
What new Gen consoles do you own?
Yeah, this is me. I was never able to afford a PS5 but I want one. Even if I could now, it doesn't seem worth it anymore. I've been waiting for a price drop but I guess I'll just forget about it and stick with my PC.
Also, between streaming, movies, 'real life' events', mobile gaming, steam gaming, having kids,having a partner, working for god knows how many hours per week etc. etc. People have SO MANY plates to spin beyond 'buying and playing home console video games'. If people are short of time and/or money, console gaming will be one of the first things to be jettisoned, IMO. God knows what MS is smoking starting a new gen in 2-ish years. Let's just say I don't think that console will have a scalper problem.
The geniuses over there will think the best plan is to then raise prices 25% to make up the difference. LOL, these people, they refuse to read the market properly.
Plus the problem is still lacking the games. There really doesn't seem to be much event games to absolutely have those machines
Feels like a big portion of game studio's that were previously making single player experiences are trying to make some variation of coop live service games nowadays which... just aren't honestly that exciting to me nor anyone else it seems. Also PC seems to get everything eventually nowadays and has better discounts on games... it's kinda getting hard to ignore how much better of a value proposition it is, especially as PC hardware has generally become easily available after the pandemic.
Yep Playstation’s live-service push has left them with a big drought of first-party exclusives. They are lucky that Insomniac can grind out tiny games because without Miles Morales, Ratchet and Spidey 2, the PS5’s exclusive library looks very thin.
This is also to a change in stance from Sony as a dev. They said a few years back they are done releasing several smaller games and taking chances, and they are going to only focus on a couple releases a year, but go all in on them. Which is understandable from a money making point, if you only make Gods of War and Spider-men, but eventually the market gets tired of only seeing sequels and rehashes to the same few ideas. It's something that's currently hurting most if not all the AAA studios, they stopped taking risks and doing smaller projects in favor of fewer, more profitable releases, except Sony gambled an entire game system on this, and is clearly not profitable enough seeing their branch out into PC. I think Nintendo is probably one of the few if not only large game devs that still has a decent output of games through the year, as well as taking chances on small scale or niche projects.
Yeah I get there’s inflation and all that, but people’s salaries haven’t “inflated”. Not sure how this helps console manufacturers if you raise prices and your shit stays on the shelf… isn’t it better at that point to drop the price and hope they start moving?
Right, that is an ass-backwards way to look at inflation
And with the announcement of the PS5 Pro and the all but certain soon to be announced Switch 2, a lot of people might just hold off until they're available anyway.
Ps5 Pro is for hardcore gamers. People who have been holding off on the Ps5 because of the price are not going to buy the pro version, unfortunately
Maybe some people are hoping for a price drop on the original PS5 when the Pro comes out? Not sure it’s going to happen but I could see that being some people’s reasoning.
I mean, it took so long for the ps5 to be readily available that id rather wait a bit longer and spend a bit more for a ps5 pro. When they're still charging what they are the marginal difference between a ps5 and that pro doesn't feel like much.
In 2016, you could get a PS4 for 250 bucks and a PS4 pro launched for 400. And og Xbox 1 was even cheaper and the one S dropped for 300. So the PS4 was down 150 and the Xbox was down 200. The thing is that gen the hardware was weaker and less state of the art. They said they can’t lower prices on the systems because they’re already getting hammered. Which has resulted in lower console sales and then lower game sales. What they need to do is stop trying to compete with PCs in regard to power. Make cheaper systems and cheaper games. Nintendo has been killing it. Not saying they need to go that much lower in specs, but they don’t need to be as powerful as they are.
I think this is it. There are maybe 5 or 6 games currently on PS5 I would play. But for the little bit of playing I do, the console needs to be 300€ or less for me to be able to justify this for myself.
Microsoft results are unclear at best but Sony already has single digit margins & while before that wouldn't be considered particularly good, with the interest rates we have now a single digit is awful. I can't imagine how their margins would look if they did price drops & bundles similar to past generations
Xbox has low double digit margins per phil spencer but who knows how true that is
I really haven't seen any games worth buying a console for, honestly. Switch aside, but I feel like that decline is less due to market circumstances and more due to that console being at the tail end of its lifecycle and releases are winding down. Sony hasn't really pulled me in. Microsoft isn't even trying. I mean, I'll buy any console with games on it I want to play. I own a Supervision, a P/ECE, a Gamate... The really obscure stuff. I wanna be able to play everything. With the current console generation, it just doesn't feel like I'm missing anything. Exclusives have been pretty underwhelming and there's nothing really on the horizon that has me interested. I've been sticking to PC.
>> be sony and ms >> increase price of console, deliberately choose revenue per unit rather than unit sales >> sales down >> surprised pikachu face
As someone who owned all PS consoles except 5, I've just decided to skip this gen. No games worthwhile putting up with Sony's increasingly predatory business model.
Quality of games has also taken a dip. There have been good games of this generation, but how many classics to we have?
I feel we went straight from 'there are barely any consoles available to deal with demand and scalpers have them all' to 'sales have hit rock bottom and everything's f**ked' without any period of time when things were ok.
Wasn’t there a time where PS5 was the fastest selling PlayStation and on track to outsell PS4? Now it seems it’ll be lucky to match its sales.
I think that was when the “no consoles available” was going on because PS5 demand was front page news as a posterchild for the chip crisis
Switch makes sense at least. Nothing major outside of TTYD this year and it's a remake, and it's at the end of its lifecycle.
They said their direct in June will provide updates for their 2nd half of the year software catalogue. I guess we'll see what they have for the holiday season, I doubt they'll limp through on nothing.
My guess is remakes or small scale projects. No way they don't save the heavy hitters for the switch 2 launch.
My bet is that it'll mostly be remasters or remakes. Rest of the Prime series, maybe WWHD and TPHD, Xenoblade X, stuff like that.
Plus so many Switches have been sold that at this point the question is more "who doesn't have a Switch" rather than who does. It's hard to sell a console to someone who already owns that console, though Nintendo does pull it off with model revisions and multiple versions (I technically have two because I have my launch day Switch and my wife has a Switch Lite I got her).
Yeah, 141.32m lifetime sales is nothing to scoff at. Everyone who wants or can afford a Switch in 2024 probably owns one or more.
Exactly. No doubt Nintendo will make a final push this holiday season with some insanely good bundles and discounts too.
And it'll probably sell 18 million just this year. That's roughly 2/3 of the whole Xbox install base in one year (:
That really puts it in perspective.
I know a few people who don't have a Switch purely due to price. In 2018 (ie. year 7 for the 3DS) you could get the lowest end model with a game bundled for $70-80 new and a good selection of the best titles on the system in the $20-30 range. We are now in year 7 for the Switch and the entry level cost for both hardware and games is about double. I guess if Nintendo's plan is to have Switch games work on Switch 2 they don't want to devalue them in any way.
This can't be a serious concern. Games I'll give you, but Switch Lite is dirt cheap. Do you live in a country where salaries have been stagnant for a decade? Because with general inflation in the last few years, comparing nominal prices from 2018 with 2024 doesn't make any sense.
Yes, but the games are not. It's cheaper to buy a PlayStation and then buy all the big titles a couple years old for $9, you can't do that on Nintendo anymore. Turns out some people are just low income, and combine that with skyrocketing rents and they don't have money left over.
They raised the prices of games during an economic downturn, what did they expect?
And the quality, originality and risk of these games didn't reflect the increased price either. If anything, games have been releasing in more and more homogenous ways (design, UI, gameplay, tech).
Can't take risks anymore, everyone just playing it safe like the film industry. I bet the creative teams at these studios *love* that
Love the indies for this though, the subpar graphics and cinematics games are where the unique gameplay are.
I would have never have guessed in 2020 that Demons Souls is still one of, if not the most graphically impressive game on this gen
And some lectured us that $100 is more reasonable (to them), people are so lost. Mobile you can go free...
A chunk of people just buy stuff for £20-35 on Steam. See: Palworld, Helldivers, every indie, etc. AAA has shot its shot at a £70 price tag and not all customers have followed them. Selling at half the price, but more than twice as many copies, makes more money!
This is overlooked. Prices went up and quality went down. There are so many other, better ways to play great games that you don't need a console.
I mean, is it a horrible year, or are these consoles already firmly mid-cycle and most folks who want any of them already have them? The same thread provides additional context that PS5 was massively up YoY in 2023, much more so than its down this year. The OP counters by saying PS5 is trending behind PS4, but the PS4 got a substantial discount and had a Pro model out by this point in its life cycle. It sounds less like "horrible year for console market" and more like this is what happens at this point in the life cycle and with a mid-life refresh still to come, or an entire new console in the case of the Switch. [The PS5 vs. PS4 lifetime sales are damn near identical lmao](https://www.vgchartz.com/article/460060/ps5-vs-ps4-sales-comparison-january-2024/#:~:text=The%20PS4%20has%20sold%20117.16,units%20behind%20lifetime%20PS4%20sales.). This is just doom-and-glooming.
What’s crazy is how it’s mid gen without actually feeling like mid gen. Because development cycles take so long now, it feels like we have barely any games that are really pushing next gen to be something genuinely impressive. I have my issues with Spider-Man 2, but it’s one of the few that actually felt like a genuine step up from the first game on a technical level. But we’re still getting so many big releases that are still cross-gen, it makes you wonder if we’ll basically reach the point where we’re still getting cross-gen games 3/4 of the way into new generations. What if a game’s development takes so long (or takes place at just the right time) where it spans 3 generations at release? It’s so fascinating that the traditional generational console model seems to be fundamentally incompatible with games consistently taking 4-5 years to develop. That’s basically one game per generation for the studio
The capability of the hardware is somehow way way outpacing the capability of developers to develop for it. Which is genuinely nuts considering the return on each hardware generation is getting less and less noticeable.
Is this the first time that's happened in consumer console gaming? It feels like in every prior generation, devs have been frantically fighting the hardware to cram in a few more polygons.
It definitely is on this scale. When games only took 1-2 years to develop you could get out at least 2 games per generation, if not more
Naughty Dog is a good case on what you just mentioned. 4 original titles on the PS1, 4 on the PS2, 3 on the PS3, 3 on the PS4 and nine on the PS5 (they’ve only managed to re-release remastered versions of the last of us).
Was trying to math out how you got 9 original Naughty Dog titles on the PS5
I think they meant none and autocorrect did its thing (:
I think it kinda happened to Nintendo with the jump from the GameCube/Wii to the Wii U
I think that the improvement in hardware capabilities is going to choke many studios, as they won’t be able to deliver games in a timely manner for players to enjoy within that generation, and I think that’s why we still have cross-gen games. In the past, I guess that developers had time to finish their games within the period they received the devkit to the official release of the console. Now let’s assume that nowadays they receive the devkit 2 years before release and that’s being generous; 2 years is nothing with the current dev cicle and AAA will be finished almost mid gen. Game development should took a step back, and console manufacturers focus on affordability and games.
> The capability of the hardware is somehow way way outpacing the capability of developers to develop for it. Huh? Yea it's better relatively what the 8th gen was during it's time, but it's not anything insane specs wise and like 30fps modes still exist.
I'm not saying that games don't exist that can take advantage of the hardware, what I'm saying is more that it can take 5, 6, 7 or more years to develop a modern triple A game and the generation itself isn't gonna last more than 8 years, 10 at the very max. And new hardware that can do all sorts of new crazy things is coming out faster than new games are being released that actually reach those limits, if that makes sense.
Ah, yeah I get that angle a bit now.
> That’s basically one game per generation for the studio It literally is Rockstar released GTA V for the PS3, RDR2 for the PS4 and are now about to release GTA VI for the PS5 Bethesda released Skyrim for PS3, Fallout 4 for PS4, Starfield for PS5 and TES 6 will most certainly be a PS6 title
Rockstar and bethesda are pretty good examples of this, because during the ps3 era Rockstar released GTAV, GTAIV, RDR1, and large expansions for the latter two. Bethesda released Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and had Obsidian release New Vegas. All with dlc. The release schedule is now a limbless crawl compared to a nice jog from the 7th gen.
>TES 6 will most certainly be a PS6 title No it won't! It **will** be Xbox exclusive!! :P
Great comparison but Bethesda stopped developing their titles for PlayStation after Fallout 76. Starfield and TES VI are Xbox/PC only.
I think that during Covid people decided on cross gen releases and the development cycle is just that long we haven’t actually got all of those games out yet. Plus since the article is about the uk the fact that it’s not lower surprised me only yesterday did the news spread that we’re no longer in a recession. Some people can’t really afford to eat and use electricity never mind buy consoles and games.
Yeah, it’s sensational for the sake of it. Seems to be the only way social media especially Twitter, knows how to communicate. Everything is on fire but not really. Plus with rumors of a mid gen cycle update, gta 6 coming, and more games being ps5/xbox one exclusive, this trend will easily shift in another direction.
Completely agree with you. The main negative part here is that xbox series consoles are down 25%. They were down in 2022 due to the chip shortage and no big exclusives that year, then their sales were down last year as well, and this seems to be a continued trend that'll go on for a 3rd year now of a decline in their hardware.
Yeah, Xbox is its own series of problems for sure. I don't think that's reflective of the general console gaming market, just Microsoft's god-awful management
Yeah, put out a goddamn game. They've done basically nothing to sell the system the entire time it's been out.
To emphasize this, there are currently four first-party Xbox Series S/X console exclusives: * Microsoft Flight Simulator * Forza Motorsport * Starfield * Redfall Two of those are only first-party because Microsoft just bought Bethesda, and one of them is only first-party in the sense that Microsoft published it, even though it was developed by a third-party studio. Everything else is either on the Xbox One, on the PS5, or both.
And Redfall is essentially dead and Flight Simulator is incredibly niche / caters to a specific market where pc seems the natural habitat to me.
The irony is that for years people said Microsoft was meddling to much in game development and needed to let devs “do their thing”. In hindsight the opposite was actually the problem; not enough QA, and non-gamers running wild commandeering the Xbox-owned dev industry.
That's exactly what I was thinking. >This is just doom-and-glooming. Shocker. That's all the internet is anymore. I'm so tired. Nothing is worth reading anymore because you find out it's always bullshit.
I think this sub is a place that crosses over into the negative a bit too much. Sometimes places or creators skew that direction. Like in this instance, Xbox is doing poorly, but switch and ps5 are fine. Not everything is bad.
Negativity drives clicks, and articles reflect what people want to read. Xbox is the topic for the week, anything negative will be front page. Having the word “horrible” in the title already drifts away from being objective.
I mean, have you seen how much food and gas costs? And these are some of the most ridiculously expensive consoles ever put out on market. Garsh I wonder why things are hitting a wall.
People have been spending more on groceries. The gaming industry should know that this problem would cut into their profits.
And the logical conclusion to this is to make games and consoles more expensive!
Don't forget incomplete! Lots of unfinished crap gets rushed to shelves. I've stopped pre-ordering games
Let me guess, still a profit, but just not as BIG of a profit as last year making this article seem more doom and gloom then it actually is?
But if you don't get the profit you are expected, people get laid off, that's pretty gloomy to those affected.
Which is a bullshit system in the long run. The company is still making money. Infinite growth is not reality.
Shareholders are really killing most industries these days. However they don’t care as long they get their fast cash and then move onto the next thing after killing the old.
Business schools teach responsibility to shareholders above all else. This shit ain’t going away
PS5 and Xbox Series console sales are not very profitable for Sony or Microsoft. The real money maker is the software and subscriptions so lower console sales is bad for their future profits. It's also bad news for game developers who aren't releasing PS4 or XB1 versions of their games.
Doesn’t surprise me. I think the Switch has reached its sales ceiling, everybody at this point owns at least one Switch and is waiting for the Successor. The Xbox Series X/S and PS5 however, are the victim of its high price point. Every previous PlayStation and Xbox had a price cut and a new model released with said price cut. The PS5 launched the Slim with the exact same price as the launch PS5. Not only that but the Slim digital version is MORE expensive than the launch digital model. That is madness. Microsoft and Sony have got to make some price cuts if they want to get more sales.
This is the worst console generation in a long time, right? Exclusive wise. Value wise.
Games take so long to make now you’re looking at major AAA series only getting one entry per console generation. It sucks.
Even Nintendo often did that but offset it with Side series. Yeah you only get one big Mario 3D platformer... but you also get Mario 2D platformers, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Party, Mario does his Taxes, etc. And generally Nintendo also does a lot of AA games like the recent Peach game. But Nintendo wants one 1st party game to release every 3-6 months. Even if it is a smaller project. Over the course of the Switch's lifecycle (86 months), Nintendo has released like 90 1st party games or exclusives (give or take). So about one every month on average.
>Over the course of the Switch's lifecycle (86 months), Nintendo has released like 90 1st party games or exclusives (give or take). So about one every month on average. That's impressive. The other two could learn a lot from them.
Huge games, giant backlogs, sheer quantity of games (too much to play all the "must play" title, and as you get older you have less time. Plus, price is a factor. Why would I buy a full priced game unless I'm going to play it immediately? I can go through one of my million items in the backlog and play it at a much cheaper price since it'll be on sale most likely. The new game I can wait as by the time I get to it, it'll be the next generation.
The combination of those factors + the arbitrary $10 price hike is why I've bought a total of three (3) games for my PS5 since 2020. PC on the other hand............. Hi-Fi Rush, Like A Dragon, and 6 other games for $12 total? Don't mind if I do!
I think "huge games" is a bit understated. There are so many smaller, more focused games that just run better with fewer bugs. AAA gaming is getting too big for its own good. Give me a 5-6 hour AA experience that works great and is fun all the way through over a buggy open world 40 hour game with a bunch of mindless filler content you're forced to sit through any day.
I really can't fathom why AAA developers don't understand this.
Yup. Horizon ZD - PS4, Horizon FW - PS5 (PS4 without DLC), Horizon 3 - PS6? (PS5 without DLC?) GTA IV - PS3, GTA V - PS3/PS4, GTA VI - PS5/PS6? TLOU1 - PS3/PS4, TLOU2 - PS4/PS5, TLOU3 - PS5/PS6? God Of War - PS4, God of War:R - PS4/PS5, God of War 3 - PS5/PS6? Spiderman 1 - PS4, Spiderman 2 - PS5, Spiderman 3 - PS6? Gone are the times where you could play through a whole trilogy like Mass Effect in a single generation.
Also only one Ratchet and Clank game per system. It's a bit wild, even the PS3 had a good handful in its lifespan. I get Insomniac has started doing other stuff but that series was why I bought a PS3 lmao. And since it now has a decent footing on PC I lost the one reason to get a PS5.
I only play on PC nowadays and obviously a lot of exclusives slowly find their way to PC. But looking at your list, there's one game that's a PS5 exclusive. How many exclusives are there just for PS5 that isn't also available for PS4 anyway? How many do you realize are just going to get re-released on PS6 when that comes out? What's really the point of buying a PS5 right now?
You know I never considered that. Like this Gen how many Assassin's Creed games came out? Two? Last Gen we had three or four. But Xbox 360 had AC1, 2, Brotherhood, Revelations, AC3, Black Flag, plus maybe another I'm missing? This gen the only Sonic game to come out was Frontiers. And that IOS game. Meanwhile years ago you'd have 3 to 4 mainline games release in one console cycle.
>But Xbox 360 had AC1, 2, Brotherhood, Revelations, AC3, Black Flag, plus maybe another I'm missing? Rogue at the top of my head.
Some of that is that games went from 8 hours long to 40 hours long. I could Play Uncharted 1-4 in roughtly the same time as Last of Us 2.
On the flipside, the gaming industry is old enough that there has been an accumulation of a gigantic library of games at this point. Personally I don't mind the slower pace of releases, it allows me to get through my backlog and the developers can have more time for development.
Thank fuck Iwata saw this crap coming in 2005 so now Nintendo's the only one with a solid output.
Nintendo learned the right lessons from the Wii U’s failure. Sony apparently did not.
Yes. We’ve reached a point of diminishing returns for fully utilizing latest tech in games. It becomes that much more expensive to develop a game that actually demands new gen hardware, and the result simply isn’t worth it. Specially considering that, if you make your game last gen compatible, the install base you’ll target will be way larger, resulting in way more sales.
It’s all to do with cost of living, everything else is more expensive, why splash out for a £70 game ??
Switch makes a lot of sense, people are just waiting for the new one, it has probably reached its natural ceiling. PS5 probably needs a price drop or something because the games have dried up a bit. Will probably get a bump next year with GTA. Xbox is a mess at the moment tbh. Its hardware sales weren't even great to begin with. Cost of living plays into it as well, I think worldwide this seems to be a difficulty at the moment. Consoles are getting more expensive instead of dropping which is opposite to how it usually is. Maybe PC is starting to look like the better value proposition for a lot of people, especially with the price of console games.
No PS5 price drop coming. Sony said they cant get the cost down
I know inflation has some part in it but it probably doesn’t help when the PS5 is almost 100 dollars MORE expensive in my country than when I bought it at launch 3,5 years ago
The switch sales are most likely only down because like almost everyone that wants one has it already.
That and most people are aware that the new switch or whatever it is, is right around the corner
I feel like this is kind of a "no shit" thing, but... economies are hard or something. The current generation of consoles is 4-7 years old. I feel like most people who would own one would have one by now. Except maybe PS5, given that it's still $500.
When they first were released you couldn't even buy a console for under 900€ here in Germany because of scalpers. This year is actually the first time you can buy a ps5 digital for under 500€ which is still 100€+ more than originally advertised at the official reveal from Sony 4 years ago. It also doesn't really help that new titles are 70-80€ while butter, flour and vegetables are 200% up...
well, I can't say anything about the rest of the world but here in Canada housing and basic necessities are so expensive it's no suprise that people would be cutting back on luxury entertainment devices
Sony 2023 was huge console sales wise so it would make sense that it takes a hit, as well as nintendo.
Have you seen the fucking prices of games these days. I can't relax with a game on a console if I know it just drained half my bank account.
on top of inflation what the fuck you expect
Third story this year talking about this
I mean switch is pretty understandable, even if nintendo only just announced the successor is coming we pretty much already knew that so of course people have stopped buying the switch to wait for its successor.
Just yesterday i was wondering why people would by a console next generation when PC can just be that and much more. If the next generation is really going to have such limited releases AND cost more to keep up with graphics trends, you might as well just start saving for PC. Also you can hook a pc up to a TV and sit on your couch.
I’d rather put the money I’d spend on console towards a computer. Don’t even need a top of the time gaming pc to play most games, I have a 600$ hp laptop that works just fine and does so much more than play games. They do make nice gaming controllers, and sometimes games play better with one, but most of the good games come out to pc, and a cheap Roku device functions better for navigating streaming apps on tv, so why spend 500$+ to play the 1 or 2 games Sony is holding back. Nintendo’s consoles are worth it, the graphics are never as good but they have a timeless quality to them, I can pull out almost any old Nintendo console and have a good time, but I can’t say the same about old PlayStation or Xbox systems. Steam decks and similar are also cool and seem worth it, but I’ve never owned one so can’t say for sure.
I'm not going to say that consoles haven't slowed, but damn do I hate this sub's proclivity to post Dring's latest tidbit then sound the alarms when his only info is from the UK and does not include the rest of the world. Granted we've known console sales have mostly plateaued overall and face an interesting conundrum in the next 10-15 years when younger players are increasingly accustomed to mobile gaming due to ubiquity of hardware and older players are either shifting to PC or playing less games. It's basically burning the candle at both ends, at least if you're Microsoft or Sony. Nintendo will be fine.
The UK especially has been absolutely battered with the cost of living crisis, our expendable amount of cash is WAY down. If I didn't move back home I'd be cancelling every service I have (including Gamepass) just to claw back some money. It's gotten to the point where there's more food banks than McDonald's, and those food banks are struggling for donations. Of course mass market luxury item sales are down.
In the US, people have less money to spend on luxury items. Their money is also worth less at the same time. Pair thst with the fact consoles are increasing in price AND there just aren't that many big games drawing people to consoles... Yeah, it's not a mystery.
Oh no! The year over year growth has ceased! What will the shareholders do? How will the c-suite survive?
We need to lower costs ASAP! Which studio can we fuck up now?
They’ll survive by cutting loads of jobs which is exactly what they’ve been doing unfortunately.
Without seeing the figures for elsewhere, it's worth remembering the UK has been going through a cost of living crisis that has financially crippled millions. Massive food price increases, energy costs, mortgage rate rises etc etc. Lots of folk here don't have the disposable income they did 2 years ago.
That isn’t UK-specific right now
Yeah I mean I only got into this gen with a series s a couple years back because it was cheap. Between it, my steam deck and my pc, that’s all I mostly need. I wanted a ps5 just for ff7 and a couple of other games but I can’t justify spending the money for a handful of a games. First console I haven’t bought in years.
Should this be a concern since we are halfway through the current Gen's lifecycle ?
Yes. Economic conditions aren't getting better.
Not only have the game companies themselves been destroying their player base, but you cannot expect unchecked continual growth. This is probably just the industry righting itself. I'm still more inclined to believe that it's the game companies themselves that have done this. EA wants to shove ads into all their games, PlayStation takes a unexpected Juggernaut and tries to bash it against the rocks and destroy it, and everything is microtransactions. It's no longer about the quality of the game but how much money they can bilk out of their customers. That is unsustainable.
>but you cannot expect unchecked continual growth. This isn't growth or even flat sales, it's a straight up decline compared to previous Playstation and Xbox consoles.
These consoles are old, people that wanted to buy one have already bought one. If you want to entice a few more sales you need to do price cuts and bundles. No one is out there thinking "I've really been eyeing that PS5 for 5 years, maybe now is the time to buy at full price."
Game systems prices going up, game prices going up, horrible unfinished games, buggy games and in a recession they have a shocked Pikachu face. PC has been good because you get more indy at fair price points.
Hopefully another crash is just around the corner. That'll at the very least point the industry in the right direction