US spending on video game consoles fell 27% last month, marking the worst November in two decades as tariffs and rising component costs pushed prices to record highs.
Playstation still wants to play the bullshit exclusive game so I will never buy a playstation again. They are getting better, but I won’t support that behavior. Epic games can take a walk too.
I usually like nintendo type systems and would scrounge together money for one for me and my wife to play together when they released one. We aren’t even trying for the switch 2. The from launch 80 dollar game releases, paired with baked in upgrade costs for games we already have and subscriptions for everything in between; it’s as a whole not worth it.
Well let’s see, what’s on the market in the video game console vertical?
Playstation 5, initially released in 2020 with 84 million units shipped. Still not an amazing software library, it’s been since the PS3 that I’ve heard of anything on Playstation that even made me want to go over to a friend’s house to play that with them.
Xbox Series S and X, again released in 2020, only 24 million units sold between the two models, and I’m amazed that many people bought one given how many balls Microsoft’s gaming division has dropped since the 360, to include naming the consoles the “Series S and X” immediately after the “One S and One X”. They’ve all but announced they’re exiting the entertainment-capable software market entirely; it wouldn’t surprise me if they removed the ability to render knock knock jokes from TrueType fonts at this point.
Switch 2, the only main console that came out this year, in 6 months it’s sold 10 million units pretty much entirely out of force of habit I think because we’re entering our third human generation of “You buy a Nintendo for children.” The library consists of $80 games, most of which are Switch games that run at higher resolution and frame rates. And they’ve been egregiously anti-consumer this generation, like, more than usual and that’s saying something. Oh, and doesn’t the console fall out from between the joycons now?
Steam Deck, released in 2003 2023, has sold some 4 million units, it almost doesn’t count as it’s a gaming laptop with face buttons and joysticks instead of a keyboard, is also here.
For some context:
Playstation 4 sold 117 million units
Xbox One sold 58 million
Switch sold 154 million
Prices are going up, fewer games are being made, “monetization” is getting more and more egregious, and again I wonder how many people are buying Nintendos for children out of sheer force of habit.
also other than Nintendo a serious lack of exclusives/zero console sellers.
the PS5 has what? maybe 15 exclusives? less? whats’ the point? There’s nothing out on the PS5 that makes me say “I need to own this console” especially when many of their “exclusives” are now available on PC. I just wish they gave us Bloodborne.
I’ve owned every Playstation console with the exception of the PS5. I even had the PSP and the Vita which I adored. but yeah the PS5 is the first playstation console where I’ve said I don’t need to own it.
I am very much on Team PC for video games, but the fact that consoles are a closed, locked-down system — something I typically think of as a drawback — can be a real strength for some game applications.
If you want to play a competitive multiplayer video game on a level footing, you don’t want people modifying the software on their system to give them an advantage. There are all sorts of companies with intrusive anticheat software on PC trying doing a half-assed job trying to make an open system work like a closed one. The console guys have more-or-less solved this.
And then there’s the hardware aspect. There is an entire industry on the PC selling “gamer” hardware that aims to give a player some degree of an edge. Higher resolution monitors with faster refresh rates driven by rendering hardware that can render more frames. Mice that report their position more-frequently. Hardware with extra buttons to invoke macros. A lot of that industry is built around figuring out ways to inject pay-to-win into competitive multiplayer video games.
I’m pretty sure that the great majority of video game players do not really want pay-to-win in the competitive multiplayer video games that they play. Consoles simply do a much better job there.
Now, if you take competitive multiplayer out of the mix, then suddenly the open hardware and software situation on the PC becomes an advantage. You can mod games to add features and content and provide a more-immersive experience. It means that I can play all sorts of older games and have a experience that improves over time when doing so.
But a lot of people do want to play competitive multiplayer games, and unless something major changes, consoles have a major area where they are simply better-suited to gaming.
Two ways that it might change:
If single player gaming displaces competitive multiplayer. My guess is that single player games with sophisticated video game AI will tend to increasingly encroach on that, though not overnight. Multiplayer saw one huge boost in the past two decades or so, which was widespread, high-bandwidth low-latency network access. But I think that that’s probably a one-off. I can’t think of any huge future multiplayer-specific improvements like that that will come along. And I can imagine a lot of future improvements to video game AI.
If PCs get some sort of locked down trusted computing environment, probably with its own memory and processor, that runs alongside the open emvironment. Basically, part of a console in a PC.
But absent one of those, I think that there are going to be gaming areas where the console excels that the PC does not.
I don’t Believe it has anything to do with the age of the hardware. The PS5 and especially the PS5 Pro are very capable machines. And PlayStation had an amazing sale this black Friday. I just think people literally don’t have money to spend on something like that right now.
I mean, they’re pretty good, but they’ve also been out for a while. I think that a lot of the people that want and can afford it have been buying it over the past couple years. Most people don’t tend to wait several years to get new consoles. I do, but even I’ve had my series s since early 2023. The tariffs can’t be helping.
US spending on video game consoles fell 27% last month, marking the worst November in two decades as tariffs and rising component costs pushed prices to record highs.
Then Trump suggested children are capable of cutting back on a basic school supply: pencils.
“No, I’m not saying that,” Trump when asked whether Americans can expect to see empty store shelves in the future. “I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”
Nonetheless, Trump disputed that his comments should be interpreted as an acknowledgement that prices for Americans are going to increase as a result of his sweeping universal tariff on products imported to the United States.
“No. I think tariffs are going to be great for us because it’s going to make us rich,” Trump said.
In those figures, do they count standalone VR headsets as consoles? Cuz they basically are. May not be the same shape, but they do the same thing. And would fill the same role in christmas shopping regards. With the Quest 3s going down to 200 USD for black friday, I have to imagine there were some units sold there.
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Playstation still wants to play the bullshit exclusive game so I will never buy a playstation again. They are getting better, but I won’t support that behavior. Epic games can take a walk too.
I usually like nintendo type systems and would scrounge together money for one for me and my wife to play together when they released one. We aren’t even trying for the switch 2. The from launch 80 dollar game releases, paired with baked in upgrade costs for games we already have and subscriptions for everything in between; it’s as a whole not worth it.
Steam Deck can emulate Switch
Well let’s see, what’s on the market in the video game console vertical?
20032023, has sold some 4 million units, it almost doesn’t count as it’s a gaming laptop with face buttons and joysticks instead of a keyboard, is also here.For some context:
Prices are going up, fewer games are being made, “monetization” is getting more and more egregious, and again I wonder how many people are buying Nintendos for children out of sheer force of habit.
🤔
Yeah, you know, they were trying to get Half Life 2 out as a launch title but the game was delayed?
You can stop hitting them. They’re already dead.
But seriously this was a great breakdown.
This is a pretty fucking easy one to crack, fellas.
also other than Nintendo a serious lack of exclusives/zero console sellers.
the PS5 has what? maybe 15 exclusives? less? whats’ the point? There’s nothing out on the PS5 that makes me say “I need to own this console” especially when many of their “exclusives” are now available on PC. I just wish they gave us Bloodborne.
I’ve owned every Playstation console with the exception of the PS5. I even had the PSP and the Vita which I adored. but yeah the PS5 is the first playstation console where I’ve said I don’t need to own it.
I am very much on Team PC for video games, but the fact that consoles are a closed, locked-down system — something I typically think of as a drawback — can be a real strength for some game applications.
If you want to play a competitive multiplayer video game on a level footing, you don’t want people modifying the software on their system to give them an advantage. There are all sorts of companies with intrusive anticheat software on PC trying doing a half-assed job trying to make an open system work like a closed one. The console guys have more-or-less solved this.
And then there’s the hardware aspect. There is an entire industry on the PC selling “gamer” hardware that aims to give a player some degree of an edge. Higher resolution monitors with faster refresh rates driven by rendering hardware that can render more frames. Mice that report their position more-frequently. Hardware with extra buttons to invoke macros. A lot of that industry is built around figuring out ways to inject pay-to-win into competitive multiplayer video games.
I’m pretty sure that the great majority of video game players do not really want pay-to-win in the competitive multiplayer video games that they play. Consoles simply do a much better job there.
Now, if you take competitive multiplayer out of the mix, then suddenly the open hardware and software situation on the PC becomes an advantage. You can mod games to add features and content and provide a more-immersive experience. It means that I can play all sorts of older games and have a experience that improves over time when doing so.
But a lot of people do want to play competitive multiplayer games, and unless something major changes, consoles have a major area where they are simply better-suited to gaming.
Two ways that it might change:
If single player gaming displaces competitive multiplayer. My guess is that single player games with sophisticated video game AI will tend to increasingly encroach on that, though not overnight. Multiplayer saw one huge boost in the past two decades or so, which was widespread, high-bandwidth low-latency network access. But I think that that’s probably a one-off. I can’t think of any huge future multiplayer-specific improvements like that that will come along. And I can imagine a lot of future improvements to video game AI.
If PCs get some sort of locked down trusted computing environment, probably with its own memory and processor, that runs alongside the open emvironment. Basically, part of a console in a PC.
But absent one of those, I think that there are going to be gaming areas where the console excels that the PC does not.
Well yes, but also tariffs and the rising cost of components, such as memory are going to play into this. It’s only going to get more expensive.
Capitalism loves using supply and demand to justify anything… up until it’s time to lower the price to adapt to low demand.
À complete mystery. We probably need more AI.
I don’t Believe it has anything to do with the age of the hardware. The PS5 and especially the PS5 Pro are very capable machines. And PlayStation had an amazing sale this black Friday. I just think people literally don’t have money to spend on something like that right now.
I mean, they’re pretty good, but they’ve also been out for a while. I think that a lot of the people that want and can afford it have been buying it over the past couple years. Most people don’t tend to wait several years to get new consoles. I do, but even I’ve had my series s since early 2023. The tariffs can’t be helping.
That and diminishing returns on new consoles.
“Oh no, I won’t be able to play- wait, no, the game will be on both consoles.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/05/trump-defends-toy-tariffs/83455040007/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0fEyMPhDk0
We’re going to be so rich…maybe not 250 pencil rich though.
When he says us and we he means his cabal and himself
Hellooooo Steam backlog
I’m doing my part by buying used xbox games on ebay. I was going to get a ps5 but… nah fuck that.
In those figures, do they count standalone VR headsets as consoles? Cuz they basically are. May not be the same shape, but they do the same thing. And would fill the same role in christmas shopping regards. With the Quest 3s going down to 200 USD for black friday, I have to imagine there were some units sold there.