Well that’s your fault too. Your company decided AI was more important.
They also fired thousands of workers who could have helped make shit more affordable or even improved Xbox. Now it’s going to be sold off, drawn and quartered.
Gee I wonder who made things so expensive MICROSOFT? Who could have possibly been responsible for this MICROSOFT?
MicroSLOP!
Destroy entire industries through their corruption and greed; only to wonder over the debris why they are not making any more money. The capitalist brain is amazing.
Gaming is unaffordable? Yeah. GTA 6 is going to be $80, digital only, with single player locked behind a $100 price tag.
Yeah. Gaming IS unaffordable.
GTA 6 is going to be $80, digital only, with single player locked behind a $100 price tag
Single player is $80. A bunch of extra in-game trinkets are locked behind the $20 upsell.
A new game was 60 dollars when I was 8. Im 31 now. Inflation puts the pricetag around 100 bucks if they stayed roughly the same cost. If gaming is unaffordable now its been that way since at least 2005… There also wasn’t a robust indie/cheap game scene to the tune of 10s of thousands easily accessible back then. Be annoyed about a price increase I guess but it’s not like it’s unfair or unaffordable comparatively.
NES games were $80. Thats why most households usually only had 1-2 games.
It wasn’t until resell shops came around that everyone sold their games, and bought 2-3 used games with that money.
Video gaming was unaffordable in the 80s too. I think if you compare lifetime sales of most NES games to most modern games, you’ll find the trend was that if your game wasn’t mario, it didn’t sell all that well on the NES. Even Zelda in the early days had a rough start.
Whereas these days, the industry has grown so much due to keeping prices relatively stable for 40 years. So now consoles sell more, games in general sell 10x more.
Prop that price up and watch the sales fall.
80 dollars in 1980 is the equivalent of 330 dollars today~ish. You’re not grasping the inflation aspect I’m pointing to. When looking through that particular lense, video games are cheaper now relative to historical context than they’ve ever been. Not to mention literally every consumer good increases in price consistantly to match/overcome inflation. Video games are WAY behind every other consumer product I can think of in that regard. This is especially true when talking entertainment products.
I grasp what you’re saying. You’re not grasping what I’m saying.
I’m saying as the price point came down through the 90s to $60, the amount of gamers went up.
And as $60 in the 2000s was worth less, gaming exploded in popularity again.
As it cost less, more people bought in. As costs rise, less people will buy.
A combination of high price tags, and low quality games caused the entire market to crash in 1983. To the point where video games was considered dead as disco.
We’re nowhere close to that point right now, but this is the first time in 40 years they’ve reversed direction. Games have gotten cheaper over time, and the industry grew. Now they’re making games more expensive. What is the logical outcome of that decision? If low prices make line go up, then high prices make line go…where?
You’re just so incorrect with logic so flawed in so many aspects there’s just nowhere this conversation can go. What you’re saying will be upvoted, that doesn’t make it even remotely accurate, just ideal/popular.Good luck out there.
Salaries do not keep up with inflation.
I mean technically median income has gone up about 80% in the US since 2005. While inflations CPI over that same time span is around 70%. You can look at
https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/2005?amount=100
to calculate rate of inflation and the BLS to cover median income 2005 vs 2025.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng_07202005.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2025/median-weekly-earnings-were-1196-in-second-quarter-2025.htm
That obviously doesn’t take all factors in cost of living into account (particulary housing). But what you said is basically incorrect and more importantly, completely irrelevant to a moderate increase in price to a consumer good for the first time in over two decades.
Just your games actually
Your parent company has a lot to do with that.
Last game I bought were 10€ and could be run on a potato.
If a person in their home can do a cheap fun game in their spare time so can you.
It wouldn’t actually be so bad if everything else wasn’t fast becoming unaffordable as well. If bills, rent, shopping and other expenses were not already sky high, then we might be able to afford the higher game prices.
In other news, Cribbage is taking off like wildfire.
Where is that hot dog costume guy meme when you need it ….
What type of gaming? Me over here retro gaming for free for the most part.
Everything is more expensive. Leisure activities are early budget cuts.
To be honest, I haven’t read the article, but games have never been so cheap for me.
When I was a kid, NES games were around CHF 120.-.
Then as teenager they were around CHF 89.- on Playstation 2 or 3.
Nowadays, my most expensive game on Playstation 5 was probably CHF 79.-.
And on my Steam Deck, I don’t think I’ve paid more than CHF 20.- for a game.
Related to inflation, my Playstation 3 was probably my most expensive console.
Now it’s true that the hardware prices are increasing (bought my Playstation 5 at around CHF 500.- and I guess it’d be at least CHF 150.- more expensive now), but games have become cheaper over time in my country (Switzerland).
I don’t know how much the Steam Machine is gonna be in Switzerland, but it’ll probably still be cheaper than a medium gaming PC was 10 years ago.
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