Xbox Reportedly Considering Game Pass Price Hike To Accommodate Call Of Duty

I am out if they do. $14.99 is a fair price. $19.99 a month is not.

If they raise the price I won't bother with Game Pass I'm not bothered about COD. I must be one of the few people who have never played it.

Yet they shut down Tango that made different styles of games and offered more.

I'm fed up with this greed from Microsoft.

Mad, I literally thought earlier today, off the back of the studios shutdown and word that subscription numbers are plateuing, that I could see MS eventually either shying away from blanket day one releases or increasing GP price. Never imagined it would be coming so soon!

So… don’t bother? Warzone is F2P and nobody cares about the campaign. The older games are cheap as chips. Nobody is calling for COD on Game Pass and it’s not going to tempt over any PS5 owners.

As expected. Buying Activision was just going to be to justify a price hike. So much for being "for the gamers".

Really crazy how fast changes are being made since they made more revenue than windows. Unfortunately the kid at the side table who no one cared about is centre of attention now with corpos and shareholders looking for cash in every corner. ABK definitely a poisoned chalice in the end.

I’m going to continue doing what I have done for the last 7 years….buy cod on PlayStation.

Truthfully did anyone think it would stay at this price?

Everyone knew it was a loss leader funded by MS deep pockets.

But as other articles show, subscriptions (MS/Sony) aren’t growing, so of course they will increase prices. It’s literally copying the playbook of Netflix.

Fingers crossed if true, it’s a small price rise.

When your average cod campaign is 4 to 6hrs, you could probably complete them all on one free 14 day trial! Seriously though - upping gamepass while closing studios will not be a good look

When you run out of customers to sell to you have to get more money from your existing customers. Subscription services will always go down this path.

What a ***** show, but if CoD doesn’t get into Game Pass make no mistake, the service will be dead as we know it in a matter of months.

Honestly the healthiest thing to do seems to scale Game Pass back, don’t make it the top priority of MS Gaming, don’t launch games day one but still keep the catalogue for every Xbox/Bethesda/Activision/Blizzard title released in years and generations prior, kinda like Sony does with PS+ Extra.

It will be great for them because if Call of Duty is the only game that people play after buying it and then subscribing just to play online for let's say two years straight they get more money and the player pays even more for it.

I've been telling a mate of mine recently about it, he thinks using gamepass ultimate is a great deal but he only plays battlefield 2042 through it. The game released in 2021 so in the long run, this year in November the amount of money wasted will be £468, he could of payed for it once and saved 400 in the span of three years.

There a good article on Eurogamer.
The title is.
Game pass publishing model is failing?

The industry really needs to cool it on these service price hikes, it's already at the point where they're getting hard to justify. Any more expensive and you might as well just use that money to buy games and actually own them.

I don't believe they weren't working on a strategy even before the deal went through. Like all of a sudden they've just realised how much COD makes and don't want to take the hit putting it on gamepass. They bought all these studios for exclusives and after getting them have decided they want to go multiplatform. Even worse they've started closing them down.

I'll just do the same thing that I've done with tv subscriptions.

I used to subscribe to Netflix, Prime, Now TV and Disney all at the same time. Now I just pick one each month and put the other 3 on hold. When I come back to a service after 4 months there's loads on new content to watch and I really don't miss having them all at once.

With Gamepass, I'll just make do with the games already in my collection and then subscribe for one month a couple of times a year when there's enough new content.

I am out of it it does

@Gollum That's even worse when you consider you can literally buy Battlefield 2042 for less than the price of a month of game pass these days.

good. keep raising prices to kill the xbox brand. i can't wait. the day of their may event will be soooo fun lmao.

@OldGamer999 Xbox can't just keep stuffing games into Game Pass. When it was the Forzas, Gears, and Halo every couple of years it was one thing. Once these new games start rolling out at a steady pace, they will have to reconsider — and not just the financial guys. I was never convinced Xbox would launch the new CoD into Game Pass — that would be a ballsy gamble. Even the previous year's CoD continues to make serious profit.

As far as a GPU price hike, my sub has been pure rewards points for a year and expires 9/27 at the moment. I've been expecting them to throttle back the points for a while.

@Kevw2006 Yup, it would be great and a dumb idea buying it now though 😅, you can never win these days against these companies, they have always got a trick up their sleeves.

This would be an incredibly bad idea if there is any truth whatsoever to the earlier article about how "Subscription Services Like Xbox Game Pass Appear To Have 'Stalled' In The US", unless Microsoft is comfortable with a net loss in subscriptions.

Microsoft really needs to revaluate their strategies around Game Pass, IP, third-party licensing, AAA third-party studios, and indie third-party studios.

@101Force The things is, there is cap on Game Pass growth. There's only about 30 million consoles out there, and not everyone will have a player sign up. Not everyone will stay subbed continually. It is not like Netflix where all you need is a screen, and you could even listen while driving — games are interactive. NTM, PC players are more numerous but not as readily accepting of a sub service.

How about this; don't add the new CoD to Game Pass Ultimate. Just leave things status quo in that regard. Keep all your earnings nice and neat. Same model as before, only the profit goes to Xbox. If they roll the dice and launch the new CoD in GPU, somebody is going to take the heat if profits are not as expected.

Add some kind of CoD perks for GPU subscribers. Battle Pass, discounts on the new title, coins or whatever, maybe skins. Add last year's CoD to GPU when the new one launches. Use the steady, predictable profit to fund other ventures.

My first reaction is that I will drop GP as my backlog of purchased games is vast… but terrible business to wake me up to that and drop it sooner than later….

Hey we're failing to attract subscribers, what should we do? Ohoh pick me, pick me! We raise prices!

@mousieone @honesthick Me in 6-12 months:

I know CoD generates a lot of money, but if subscription growth across all subs decreased from 2% gain to 1% gain year over year, I don’t see a price increase helping that. It’d be more of a value add to just own the game.

Damn what a terrible week for Xbox players. MS are going full scorch earth on tanking whatever love their fanbase had for them. I'm not paying anymore for GP especially for a game series i don't play.

They have to raise prices because subscription growth is at a stagnant churn.

Our economy is Wall Street driven so they have to demonstrate not just profit but upward profit growth. So the only way is to increase rates. See, well, Disney+ and most every other streamer.

I don't like duty. I don't want any duty. But it looks like I'm going to have to pay for duty.

It should be called the COD tax

CoD died to me when 4 play split screen zombies was removed.

That said just upgraded my GPU to a 7700XT.

Keep this up and I'll just go back to PC full time. 🤷

Microsoft doesn't make money when I buy games on Steam and I'm using the same Windows key I've had since 2007 so Microsoft's not making money from me that way either.

@NEStalgia HAHAHA and this is why i tune in every day multiple times on Pure and Push. Cause the you know what can hit the fan at any given minute. 😅

@theduckofdeath : If Game Pass isn't selling consoles, and PC Game Pass in particular isn't still growing, I'd argue there's a problem with the service as a product and raising rates isn't the way to go. And speaking of PCs, entry-level GPUs and even some APUs loaded up with Steam OS or Chimera OS are starting to look pretty attractive as an alternative to console gaming.

The hysterics of it all! First, when in the history of acquisitions/mergers has a new larger company not done layoffs? ....Never. And I fully expect more before it's over.

Two, I certainly don't want GP to go up but it's massive now compared to 4 years ago. Even multiple articles here have alluded to eventual price hikes. It is inevitable. The value still far outweighs the monthly cost. If you disagree you're delusional.

That said, I wonder if they've factored in how many more players would subscribe to GP to gain access to the new CoD? I only play campaigns so I'm probably not a statistic they care about, but it seems like it might be putting the horse before the cart right now. Of course these are conversations not actual announcements.

I already downgraded from Ultimate to Core, and really focusing on Call of duty and closing great studios (Like tango gameworks) seems like a stupid move.

I don't even know how to even respond to everything going on with Team Green right now.

If it really is an issue about profitability, it's time to kill the program and go back to the Games With Gold model but with better selection of games every month.

This won't keep people around.

If there's a price spike this year because of CoD being added, ill be out. CoD isn't enough of a pull for me anymore.

That Activision deal has really turned on the Xbox faithful. Xbox was humming along just fine until the $69 billion deal became headline news and got the attention of the shareholders. Now we’re seeing the repercussions.

i have no Interest in COD on Game Pass at all.

I think PC game pass will remain cheap, but still will avoid getting it.

Don’t be raising my Game Pass sub because of a game I don’t even play. Better to not make it a day 1 Game Pass release than make everyone pay for it, even those who don’t actually play it.

I feel like the CoD devotees and the Game Pass crowd are pretty separate groups? Don't punish the GP crowd.

This is what happens when you're spending three, five times the gaming division's annual revenue on studio purchases.

Already unsubscribed yesterday.

My advice to MS: just kill day one. Make it month 3, or month 6. Increasing the price is very likely going to come at the loss of a lot of loyalty (if some survived this week).

People complaining about price increase are out of touch with reality, really. It's childish to imagine pricing would stay the same for forever. I would be very concerned if CoD didn't come to GP. To me that means the every 1st party game, day one promise is broken and It'll massively erode trust in Xbox and see cancellations of GP left and right. For people complaining that they don't play CoD they're missing the point - games you play could be next to get the day 1 axe. It's a slippery slope. And at a certain point to avoid confusion people'll just hop to Sony where you understand the model at least.

First I read subscription has stalled, then a price hike. And cutting studios? Make this make sense. This gen is the first gen Ive had an xbox and at this rate it might be the last.

That would rub me the wrong way since I don’t even want call of duty.

@101Force I don't think there is anything "wrong" with Game Pass. There was nothing wrong with Hi-Fi Rush (in fact it was excellent and praised), and still it failed to sell on three platforms. People simply choose not to subscribe on PC. On console, there is a 30 million potential subscribers plus whomever still plays on an XB1. PC players won't be indoctrinated to the Xbox ecosystem and thus are more difficult to bring in.

As for playing on PC, I've been doing that since '95.

@Secryt

Pricing hasn’t stayed the same forever. There was literally just a price increase not too long ago. And generally speaking, I have no problem with price increases if there is a legitimate reason for doing so. I do however have a problem with raising the sub price for every single member because of 1 single game, which many people will never play.

@Secryt It's "childish to imagine pricing would stay the same forever" is a ridiculous statement to make when there has already been recent price hikes. This is just entertainment after all, you can only increase the price so much until people think it isn't worth it.

Would seem like a bad time to talk about it. You need good morale to able to take that hit and Xbox morale drops almost weekly.

I get their reasoning but if people aren't buying xboxes, and as such aren't buying games through xbox, is it really wise to piss off the people who are actively spending money?

@abe_hikura this is exactly what I was thinking.

The people saying about private hikes being inevitable and fine etc are also glossing over the fact we just had one. You don't raise prices every 5 minutes.

This is such a gamble if they did because for every potential sign up you also risk a mass drop of current subscribers. I really don't think it balances out well or goes up as well as they imagine it will.

Me and my son will play CoD occasionally, but we own almost all of them anyway and the size of each game (the newer ones especially) means we don't even have them installed most of the time. I'm not paying another price hike for CoD games to be added.

These companies also have to remember there's a cost of living crisis going on all over. At some point people can't afford to keep getting hiked for entertainment services and will just drop them. It's why I no longer use Netflix or Disney etc because the price keeps going up purely for me to have the option to watch things...most of which I then don't. Eventually people realise they're paying more and more for this scenario and it's not worth it.

Didn't they say in court they wouldn't increase the price of they bought Activision?

@Decimateh yes and I think they also said developers positions would be secure!

I’m done with GamePass. Any Microsoft games that I like I will buy on Steam sales.

lol.. I get the feeling here that Microsoft has bitten off more then it can chew.. they should have had a plan for ALL this agreed signed off and set in stone BEFORE they decided to buy it! At this point I’m annoyed MS was allowed to by Activision cause they don’t seem to have a concise plan about what to do with COD. Ridiculous. What they gonna do if they bump up Game Pass and sub numbers plummet and COD sales drop? Dump COD and sack all the Activision staff…….. so kill COD due to their utter incompetence? Pathetic.

@GeeEssEff I'm going to continue what I've always done - have no interest whatsoever in playing COD.

Great…HiFi 2 and Dishonored 3 are dead so we can pay more and only get a Frigging CoD every year? And if I unsubscribe, who’s gonna pay the price, Ninja Theory, double fine and Compulsion? I was able to defend Xbox before, but now it’s impossible…

as good as i think game pass is, i'm not money incarnate. its a good way to make me unsub for a good while at the least.

I don't need COD in my life so I'm certainly not paying more for it's presence on Game Pass.

To be honest, I’d sooner not have CoD on Game Pass than pay more. It’s not a game I like anyway.

The company that said they wouldn't raise the console price when Sony did. The company that said they wouldn't increase the game prices when Sony did. And only weeks after saying it they did both?

And the desperate attempt to push more people to GP by doubling the price of XBLG. (Albeit they backtracked after the outrage and said "we're still learning")

I believe this news based on their track record. Xbox is plummeting fast.

Been unsubbed since last September, partially because I believed GP was killing the industry I cared for. Everything I feared about Microsofts behaviour seems to be coming true unfortunately. There is no satisfaction in being correct on this - the damage is done.

As it currently stands I have 24 months of Game Pass Ultimate remaining, what I do when that expires I am not totally sure. Whether I buy the next Xbox, I am not entirely sure. There are a lot of variables that affect this, including what form the next Xbox takes, and what sort of cadence there is for games going to the PlayStation. If Xbox produced games are going there day one, 6 or 12 months later, then I might just abandon the Xbox entirely. I do have a very capable gaming PC, so I can still access Game Pass there if necessary, but I don't really enjoy gaming on a PC, so it would be my last resort.

One thing that would make that decision easier to make is if someone could answer a question for me; if I were to buy Gears 6 on the PC, would I need some form of Game Pass in order to play it with a friend who only has an Xbox? In other words, do I need to have Xbox Live in order to communicate and game with my mate?

@NEStalgia that’s just one thing they plan to do. But to have sales goals a for games on a sub service is weird but that’s what they do to

People here can complain all they want but IF they add Day 1 COD and the price goes up, the casuals will suscribe anyways.

@BowsersBuddy it still works, but you get a conversion rate of 2 to 3. (if you buy 3 years of gamepass core, you can convert it to 2 years of gp ultimate).

I subscribe to both GP ultimate and ps plus extra. When Sony annouced a price bump I made my mind to not renew it (and the rather mediocre line up doesn't help either).

Previously my plan was to sell the ps5 when my PS Plus ends and stick to xbox, but that plan seems to be evaporating quickly. I might need to start saving to actually buy a PC instead.

@BowsersBuddy I think the deal with Sony is that they have to keep CoD multiplatform for 10 years (so MS can't make it exclusive to xbox), but it doesn't dictate what MS does with CoD in their platform.

me personally I don't play CoD nor I have any interest in it, so if I have to pay more for it (while still lamenting the departure of tango gameworks) makes it even more bitter.

If the price goes up, I'll drop gamepass, people who wanna play cod will just buy cod. Every person that leaves is worth 3 people who stay based on 14.99 to 19.99 increase. Who is making these decisions?

@mousieone Exactly, you don't run a subscription and then look for sales numbers. Now if it's failing engagement on the subscription and also isn't selling (Redfall) well yeah, there's a problem.

The really sad thing, is I think Phil was telling the truth all that time, GP is not losing money, and is likely perfectly profitable as is. It's just not maximizing profits. And we heard straight from Amy Hood that she wants to see Xb...err...MS Gaming profits more in line with their other divisions. It' can't be sufficiently profitable anymore, it needs to be made of pure profit generating pixie dust like b2b industries in which they hold monopoly power.

XB was fun when it was about just being profitable, and playing the role of pleasing the customer as the underdog. Now that it's just another Excel designed to generate unlimited margins, there's not much fun about it. It's everything that's always been wrong with PS, except without much of the good. And TBH if they'd just be honest about what they are instead of double speak it would be easier to digest.

@Lup I don't think the casuals were subscribing previously. That's the whole problem. GP bringing cheap games was supposed to dominate the world of casuals subbing to play lots of games cheap, but the casuals never came. If you remove calling all the old Live Gold subscribers "Game Pass subscribers" when they aren't, it's only core gamers that are subbing. Do the casuals want to pay $18/mo for CoD vs just buying it like they do every year? They'd be losing money less than 4mo in.

A price rise will hurt Game Pass but multiplatform games is the right move to increase sales and revenue for the XBOX. Having first party titles at full price sale in other platforms like PS5 will increase profitablitiy while having the games day one on Game Pass.

I think Phil Spencer should make a move and speak out about the current state of XBOX. Is XBOX going to be a multiplatform company? What's Game Pass current revenue and expenses? Is Game Pass even profitable?

Another option is to have more first and second party content day one on Game Pass every month. As for the old titles, they should bring permanently old AAA games to Game Pass. Every game that comes on Game Pass should stay forever. This is a way to increase the value of the service by creating a huge library of games.

I will have to cancel my subscription at that point. For me COD adds no value as I don’t play the series and I barely play my series x as is.

@mousieone @NEStalgia It was a good run, y'all. But I just think it's over. Xbox didn't buy ABK. ABK bought Xbox, in a roundabout manner.

@SplooshDmg @mousieone HE'S BACK, HE'S BACK! GET THE CAGE AND DON'T MESS IT UP THIS TIME!!!

And yeah.....it's depressing, and completely true. I said in another thread, an Activision console is not a product I ever wanted to own.

I'm kind of torn on direction myself. I have hundreds of games on XB. I think they will still make hardware in the form of a PC in a custom form factor. Which actually would be a cool platform. But they're so volatile I'm not sure if they're worth investing in still. Can't leave the library, not sure if it's wise to grow it. Considered making PS my primary....but I don't know I feel any less grim about that future. I keep pricing PC parts just in case....but we're talking replacing 2 $500 consoles with 2 $1500-3000 PCs minimum plus rebuying the library......financially that just sounds like a bad idea. So sort of torn between Xbox is done but i'll go down with the ship even though that shark invested water looks refreshing if I just jump overboard, go PC and probably never eat again, or just.....go full Pony?

Why oh why didn't I take up stamp collecting instead.

@NEStalgia GP might be profitable as is, but that is probably because a large % of costs will be being absorbed elsewhere.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I'm not sure about that. I always go back to considering the average gamer buys 2 games a year. The 5% enthusiasts here and reddit buying 10 games a month aren't normal customers. A GP subscription is already more sales into the store than the normal customer buys. So I don't see how it's losing money if it generates more revenue per user than they otherwise would have spent.

If it's losing money, it's not likely they would have seen that revenue on raw sales either, and considering even PS with its 100m install bases only sells a few mil of it's top exclusives, and that's with marketing budgets that seem to outstrip the dev budgets, and an extreme FOMO factor their brand generates, with only 30 mil consoles, pushing a million in sales on any xbox exclusive without GP would be miraculous. And financially ruinous.

I still think people that keep beating the "subscriptions ruin gaming" mantra are missing the point. They're basing it on their own experience of buying oh so many games into the backlog. But that's not how MOST of the market buys games. The average consumer isn't replacing $1000 in full price purchases a year with a $216 subscription, they're replacing $140 in games a year with a $216 sub but getting to try more games.

An INDIVIDUAL published game may do worse because of GP. But MS as a platform/storefront comes out ahead. Especially when you compare to PS and Nintendo where a large part of sales is still physical and incurs both manufacturing costs as well as retailer cut/wholesale pricing which is up to a 40% loss. The intake from GP looks that much better.

With GP or without, the problem Xbox has is simply too small an install base to fund "AAA exclusives" at all. Of course PC is another story.

The main issue right now is the corporate execs want to see the same kind of profitability as their other big b2b divisions. That means simply being profitable isn't good enough. It needs to be a mountain of raw multiples of profit.

@NEStalgia I believe there is a place for subscription. I just don’t think it’s fully settled where it needs to be… currently I think EA might be doing it best, where they hit 6months later.

Would GP work better if it was smaller? Just the MS owned stuff, no 3rd party?

I fully get that yes per casual they may get more money, but that is also offset by the ‘gamer’ using points/cheap codes etc.

For me that I’m most interested in, is what comes under the costs header for GP? Is stuff like starfield a development costs part of it? Is the hosting of cloud/servers etc? Or do MS hide these costs in other departments?

@NEStalgia @SplooshDmg I’ll probably respond properly later but yes ABK won and yes we need the cage. @fatalbubbles what did you do with the cage?

@NEStalgia I'm glad the decision was easy for me and I'm still just happily gaming on PC and Switch and never looking back. I sold my PS5... Again. Lol

@SplooshDmg how many times now is this ?

@mousieone I've sold two PS5's now. I've finally determined that I just don't want one. I sold my original one a week after launch, and another about six months ago. The curiosity is finally just dead and buried. I actually sold my last PS5 and put it toward a nice ASUS laptop, for portable PC gaming. Lol

Id rather they didnt include the atest Call of Dutys in Games Pass if it means a price increase. They should add a new COD title to Games Pass a year after its release so that sales arent harmed, plus GP subscribers can still eventually benefit from it.

It would be a big mistake for MS to raise prices with the bad sentiment towards them right now.

@mousieone Better question is, how did you get out of it???

@SplooshDmg LOL....sigh. IDK. It's about money and convenience. Neither console is a happy place anymore, but for now money still talks. What $3k+ for a desktop rig $550-650 for a handheld, new library from scratch. $500 for a new VR set (admittedly better than Sony's....) Were that I were made of money I'd just go build a dual 4090 and buy all 700 games again on steam and preorder a Quest 3 Pro.

I don't hate PS5, I just don't love it. I used to love XB but now I am leaning towards a sort of general confusion and uncertainty. PC.....I mean the GPU costs more than the PS5, and the good GPUS cost more than the XSX and PS5 Pro combined

I think if I were going to go the PC route I'd have to de-escalate down to a 1080p rig, and/or just main a Deck/Rog rather than a rig. Then I have to decide Chose PS, stick with XB to the bitter end, or.....endure 1080p.

@NEStalgia Eh, I mean, I get it. My PC rarely gives me grief. It costs more, but I personally just find it to be an infinitely better experience than a console. That isn't to say it's just for everyone, but it's 100% for me. I actually just ordered a Ryzen 7 5800x yesterday that was on sale for $175.00. That's the first component I've put in this PC in probably two years at this point. But it's basically completely spec'd out as far as what this mobo will take, so there really isn't much more money that could be sank into this one. But that 5800x will absolutely clobber the 3700x I've got in it right now.

@FatalBubbles I’m a mouse ._. It’s not my fault you all make the holes too big.

@SplooshDmg "Costs more" didn't you put a $1500 GPU in there?

@FatalBubbles @mousieone Quietly distributes glue traps

@NEStalgia I did years ago. I knowingly bought a 3080ti while prices were outrageous due to crypto mining BS, and that card isn't really necessary, but it's also still an insanely good card even with the RTX 4000 cards in the wild. But prices are pretty much normal now. You can get solid AMD cards for pretty cheap, and stuff like the 4070 is reasonable enough these days.

If they raise the price again I'm unsubbing

Whatever, cancelled gamepass yesterday because I have too much to play that I own. If cod is the direction xbox is going in, I'm out.

@Kevw2006 You can get it at Walmart for $5 on disc, even the Series X version. I was just there and saw it with my own eyes. Too bad I already have it.

@JayJ Yes, this. Can we just just go back to that? Oh wait, they don't want us to own anything. The need to either shut down Game Pass or reserve it for games that don't make money anymore and use it as a way for game preservation. It creates an incentive for them to participate in game preservation if people will pay for it and then everyone gets the guarantee that digital games will stay accessable.

I think PC may be where everyone goes for gaming. The console space is turning into a s_h_i_t show. Integrated graphics is getting pretty powerful, so the price of getting into PC gaming could be as cheap as getting a basic PC from Walmart.

@ZYDIO It depends. There's definitely cheap PCs for games but they're far below the console performance right now. Maybe series s level for twice the price. You're still looking at$1500-3000 to match the series x or PS5. That's the conundrum. Are we willing to roll back a gen and a half to go PC and afford to eat

@NEStalgia Really, it's still that expensive huh? I thought maybe that would have come down a bit since 2020. I'm guessing we're getting at least Xbox One / PS4 performance out of these APUs in cheap PCs now.

@ZYDIO Yeah I mean you can build a nice 60fps 1080p rig under $1k. Even under $750 maybe. But 4k..... The prices seriously jump to get to xsx level which is already weak. Part of me is tempted to just go back to 1080 and #dealwithit.

@NEStalgia Damn, really? $750 for 1080p/60. I have a gaming laptop that can do 1440p/120 on most games while capturing, that cost me $900.Oh wait, I just realized I got that thing on sale. I think it was normally $1,500. So I do see your point. Still, that much for 1080p/60? Something doesn't seem right with that. An Xbox One or PS4 is like $120. I guess I was right for sticking with console gaming for so long. I just recently got the gaming laptop. I really only got it for capturing my Xbox consoles, then I realized that "it is a gaming laptop" so I went down that rabbit hole.

@ZYDIO Keep in mind we're talking current games that force a certain mount of vfx etc. On XSX I'm running FFXIV on 4k mode and it holds near 60, but guaranteed that ends in July when the game gets its graphics overhaul with more foliage etc.

Console's always cheaper (or at least for now, is) since they're not trying to make (much) (if any) profit on hardware, whereas PC parts they're not selling you games so the hardware vendors need to make all their money on the parts.

But i'm surprised you'd be able to get away with 1440p/120 on even a $1500 laptop...that seems....overperformant by a long shat. That's outperforming XSX and at that price point on a laptop of all things really shouldn't be. Is that with basically all the vfx sliders down? Is it really 1440/120? Honestly 1440/60 would really surprise me on that. What GPU is it running?

@NEStalgia The games I was playing 1440p/120 they were set on high and some of them I was using DLSS on quality. Those aren't brand new games though but it was doable and on older games I was running 4K/120 and wasn't even maxing out anything. The last game that I played that was I guess considered newish was Horizon Zero Dawn and I played it at 1440p/60 with everything on high using DLSS on quality and capturing at 1440P/60. I was hitting 85% GPU Max and CPU was like 3%. As you already know, it varies greatly form game to game. My laptop is a Lenovo Legion Pro 7i I think. I forget the exact model number. It has an AMD Ryzen 5 8640HS, Nvidia RTX 4060 8GB and from what I can tell it's one of the higher wattage ones, 32 GB of RAM, OS drive is a HQ Hyinx 1TB SSD and my game and capture drive is a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro. It came with 16GB of RAM, I upgraded it to 32GB and I added the Samsung 990 Pro. Those things were not included in the $900 price I paid. Now that I think about it, I have a few games that run at 4K/120 or 1440p/120 on the Series X. Doom Eternal runs at 4K/120 without ray tracing and Mass Effect Legendary Edition runs at 1440p/120, one of the Battlefields runs at 4K/120, I forget which one, Star Wars Battlefront 2 runs at 4K/120.

@ZYDIO 4060....yeah I can see that for a game like ZD, a PS4 game ported, I could see 1440/60 on that. That's a card that would I think be considered "PS5/XSX equivalent" or slightly better maybe.

The 4060 desktop part is $300, so in that "under $750 build" that leaves you 450 for CPU, mobo, chassis, PSU, RAM, SSD...might be hard to put a desktop 4060 in a sub 750 build, and it's still considered a "just average" card below what the consoles do with 4k. With clever shopping it can be done, but you're still coming in pricy and a bit cheaper than your laptop, for still sub XSX/PS5 performance.

With sales you can probably do it. List price I'm thinking
GPU 300
CPU 150-ish if clever
mobo 100
RAm...150....ish? depnding?
SSD 150...ish?
PSU 100
chassis, 50 we'll just go cheap.
Windows license: $150

$1050 or so. Of course sales can be had. But that's what you paid for the whole laptop so there's that.

Still at list pricing we're up to $1050 for a build with that card that's a bit better than the consoles. Could it be "PS5 Pro" grade. Maybe? SO the pricing may be closer. But there's still a premium there.

@NEStalgia Damn, PC gaming is still expensive. I guess that's why I've been mainly console for so long. Also, I got my processor model number wrong, it's a Ryzen 5 7640HS not 8640HS. I don't know what difference that makes.

@ZYDIO Yeah, I kind of want to escape Xbox indecision and go PC and then every time I price it even with cut down parts I can't really get under $1k for a 4060 build and that's still going to be weaker in GPU but stronger in CPU than PS5 pro for more money most likely.

Then again Ms is loosing 200 on each Xbox. Phil talked about the console subsidized model being over. Sony wanted to charge 600 for PS5. I'm thinking next Xbox is 700 or 800. Makes 1k seem more palatable where games can be had for $35 a year or two after release.

@NEStalgia I bet that's exactly what happens. It will still give console people a choice when they just want to plug in a box and play it, but it will be around the same price as a comparable PC for the people who want to customize.