Xbox Series X|S Console Sales Down A Third In Europe With 'Weaker Software Lineup' In 2024

Nothing has dropped really for either ps5/series that is from first party stuff, I know the second half looks better so hopefully these deliver across both platforms

The truth is that the idea of ​​buying a console again seems doubtful after playing on PC, and lately many people are making the jump to this platform.

In the past, consoles were based on exclusives, and a little bit also on ease of use. But the exclusives are disappearing, practically everything can now be played on PC, and consoles have become just as complex as a PC (installations, updates, etc.).

We can still consider the comfort of playing from the couch, a place where a PC still does not compete adequately, in addition to the fact that a console is usually cheaper to purchase, but otherwise, having an Xbox Series begins to not make much sense, and gradually not having a PS5 either.

I think we are in a hybrid moment, where consoles are losing that traditional value compared to other ways of playing, and I think Microsoft is the one that is running the most in this process (perhaps because it benefits them), which is especially harming its consoles. Although as long as a few of us continue to prefer consoles as a way to play, they will continue to release Xbox.

@Pabpictu i don’t disagree with you, but I would like to add a little game called GTA 6 hasn’t come out yet and when it does it is console exclusive for at least a year if not longer if they hit any delays and setbacks. The whole world will be on consoles during that time. Plus we still haven’t seen the best of Sony’s dev’s titles for PS5 yet. Those will be timed to PS5 before PC. But still those will take any from the PC is the new best place to play a little bit. Then once Switch 2 comes out and gives new life to the Platform as the 7.5 year old switch is running out of steam a little. That too will lift the console space. PC is great and all but i don’t see it take to much away from consoles once these consoles start to produce AAA titles that are on console first or in Nintendos case forever. Xbox well we know a lot of players will play their games on PC.

@Pabpictu
What? I would disagree with you.
Let’s go and spend £3000+ on a decent PC, or buy a XBox Series X for a fraction of the cost and play more or less same games….the extortionate price of graphics cards killed the PC.

@WhiteRabbit
1 click on my joy pad, sitting on my couch in my man cave, fires up the XBox and 55” LG OLED, instant access to awesome Ultimate Game Pass, and too many games to play. When gaming session done, hold X shut down Xbox and OLED simultaneously.
Sorry been there with a gaming PC back in the distant past when it was actually affordable to the average gamer….never going back there! Unless I win lottery and have crazy money and time to build a super duper PC rig lol

@Pabpictu don’t over rate the PC market. Most consumers are casual gamers and aren’t likely to buy a PC for gaming. No matter how cheap a decent gaming PC will be. Console gaming will always be cheaper and now steaming devices. I have a powerful gaming PC, PS5 and Xbox series X. For me PC is for strategy and simulation games. I exclusively play RPGs, FPS, and racing games on consoles. Something about sitting in front of a large screen with real surround sound from a A/V receiver. I just don’t see any evidence of PC being as significant for casual gamers as you indicate. As outside of niche groups like the folks on this site and push square most people aren’t talking about PC gaming. As to most people their PC is just for doing their school work. PC still has a nerdy connotation with it. Which is a great thing IMO. As console gaming has become watered down due to normies. I do think PC gaming could artificially grow depending on how Microsoft markets its PC games pass with cloud streaming. But even so that can hardly be considered PC gaming.

@JonBoyJ @WhiteRabbit I have been pricing a DIY PC and honestly...$3K is ridiculous unless you absolutely need to use an Nvidia 4090.

AMD 7800X3D
32GB DDR5 6000 RAM
Nvidia 4070 Super 12GB
2TB Samsung Pro M.2 drive (7450 MB/s Read speed)

Completely out-classes the Series X/PS5 and is $1576. Honestly, I don't see PS6/Nextbox beating that CPU/RAM combination.

Take into account PC doesn't require Game Pass or PS+ as well as games getting handed out for free left and right on top of regular sales and can last you well over 10 years without needing any component updated, I'd say PC gaming is the way to go if you want be able to experience Xbox and PlayStation games at their absolute best.

I am absolutely ditching consoles (except Nintendo Switch), but I am waiting to pull the trigger until I see what the Nvidia 50 series cards have to offer (as this is very close to Nvidia's timeframe for release new GPUs - Sept/Oct).

@Kloppo Screwing over loyal fans and straight up alienating everyone who is looking to buy a console right now, a friend recently asked me a recommendation to buy a console and having both I just said to get a PS5 or wait for the Pro, even tho Sony has also been a bit disappointing this generation but at least it isn’t trying to kill PlayStation as Microsoft is with Xbox.

Well all know Europe isn’t a big Xbox area anyway since the Xbox360 days.
There is one company to blame called Microsoft and enough said.

@Kloppo are they taking away games from Xbox fans?

@GamingFan4Lyf
Point taken….but $1576 is still big bucks!
I got my Series X plus 55 C3 LG OLED for less than that.

@JonBoyJ I mean, if you are a one console person, then gaming PC might not make as much sense.

But if you want the "best of all worlds", it's better to get a PC and you don't need to spend over $3K to achieve it.

@GamingFan4Lyf
I don’t believe PC Gaming is the best of all worlds.
Console gaming is a no brainer for value for money and convenience.
I don’t want to continue this Console v PC debate….lets agree to disagree 👍🏻

It's almost like hardware sales are driven by software sales. **guestures at microsoft**

@JonBoyJ For the last 14 years, I would agree with you - I ditched PC for console back in 2010 simply due to convenience, cost, and exclusive content.

However, with Microsoft seemingly slowly abandoning console as a priority for Xbox and my fears of what an unchecked Sony will look like in the premium console market one day (with basically Microsoft out of the way), I'm not so sure sticking around the console market is a great idea, either.

Unfortunately, another problem lies on the business side where console makers may not be able to subsidize hardware going forward. The $500 console might be dead next generation. If you are a multi-console gamer, one could be paying $1200 - $1500 for both consoles to begin with (and probably closer to $2K for all three consoles).

But I can't argue consoles convenience value. It's absolutely there and I don't blame anyone for sticking with them just to be able to "plug and play" for gaming. It's super easy and there is a reasonable expectation that every game just works. That guarantee isn't there on PC.

This is my personal choice. My only point to make is that $3000+ is extreme. If you can DIY your rig, then even $2K is high. But it all depends on what you want out of a PC.

@HonestHick GTA6 will boost Series and PS5 tremendously, and the bump also this week and ongoing for College Football 25 will be a good boost for console sales since there isn't a PC version.

The thing about it is if games are console only at launch it helps consoles sales much more than if there is a PC version of the game, it just is how it is now.

You either make exclusives, console exclusive and/or console launch exclusives or console sales suffer. It's just that simple. Or your an aging console like Switch that is in a dire need for a successor launched.

@abe_hikura yep and exciting new games. looks up at the clouds

@JonBoyJ @GamingFan4Lyf it's only convenient because the form factor and the singular storefront otherwise when accessories required to play games over many years becomes more or equal to the cost of a PC it can no longer make sense (Series propriety SSD cards).

If you can use a console within a few hundred $ of accessories in its lifetime it will likely be cheaper than PC but that all depends on how you purchase games: day one/wait for sale, disc sales, etc. If you budget and wait it's absolutely cheaper, though if you day one digital 4-6 games a year over 5 years you will creep into PC spending territory due to how much cheaper day 1 or sale PC games are vs console.

This is why Xbox consoles are failing and falling down, my own case.
I have a series x and think it is the best console.
I have GPU great value.
I have been with Xbox since day one all consoles.
I have a Switch and PS5.

So why have I two weeks ago switched my main console from Series x my favourite console and controller to now the PS5 being my main console for all games and third party and eco system.

Simple, dis trust and uncertainty with Microsoft and Xbox consoles.

I know Sony and Nintendo will release next generation consoles with the power in the hardware and physical media.

I don’t k know or have no confidence if Xbox will release an under the TV full hardware power console, next generation.

They may release a cloud base streaming console or a console that uses cloud for some of its power. Absolutely useless to me.
They may not release a console at all.

So there you have it, myself and others I know have no confidence and have uncertainty and dis trust in Microsoft with Xbox consoles.

Additionally they hardly set the world alight with their so called big AAA exclusive games.

Just to added to the above.
I still have my series x and GPU stacked until March 2025.
By then the bigger decision will be made keeping the console or maybe both GPU as well.

This will give me a chance to see Avowed and INDY first party studio AAA quality.
This may give me chance to see more of their games for 2025.
This may give me a chance to see their direction with future hardware.

Here’s the numbers for Europe, does not include UK and Germany but doesn’t changed the trend.

PS5 360.4k
NS 149.3k
XS 85.7k

@OldGamer999 I assume with Sarah saying "powerful hardware" we will see if it's a traditional local box within 2025. Early 2025 if it comes end of 2026 or late 2025 if it's coming more in the 2027 timeframe.

@kuu_nousee
Yes Sarah did say that, so that would lead me to think in normal circumstances.
Standard powerful hardware under the tv, I hope.
But I don’t trust them I’m afraid.

Absolute state of Xbox, depressing.

It’s disappointing to see MS not try to take advantage of a drier year but with all of their games failing (except Forza Motorsport) last year they just don’t have any gas left.

I really enjoy my Console, I’ve been negative about it recently because I could have saved over $300 dollars and gotten a used Xbox One and had the exact same experience. At least I know I’ll be well taken care of into the next generation assuming they eventually drop Xbox One, and I won’t have to upgrade.

Maybe they are saving major releases to try and take the Switch 2 head on?

Well, we are in the second half of the generation, so the curve is going down.

Leaving Switch aside, a generation very solid in terms of online services, and expanding audiences, but lacking a sense of identity and posterity.

@VoidPunk
I don’t thinks its worth taking the Switch 2 on directly in any shape or form.

They need to doing the following:
Creating quality first party AAA games
Advertising : brand momentum
Remove uncertainty in the brand
Exact clarity on next generation hardware
Exact clarity on brand direction, they seem to be trying 3 things at once, leaving us not sure in their directional future intensions.

I said it in the push thread, but gaming has been pricing itself out of most markets. $500 consoles soon to be $600, 700. $70 games when even $60 was a lot. >$1000 GPUs. Subscriptions, services galore. And the games to match the hardware cost so much to make they can't make profits on making games to the size market that can afford the hardware/subs at a price they're willing to pay. It went from being a mainstream activity for everyone and anyone to have a box to play some games under their TV to this pricy hobby for dedicated hobbyists. Of course market will shrink. They didn't define the target price of the target market, they just built whatever seemed impressive and expected people would pay it. Meanwhile phones and PCs that everyone has are getting more and more capable of running games that aren't pushing hardware for the sake of pushing hardware.

@Pabpictu That's a big part of it where consoles once had their own media ecosystem, retail floor space, trading culture, grab a disc/cart, put it in the slot, play the game, that was designed for the hardware.

Now console games are mostly just ports of games designed for PC, with all the problems of PC games baked in, and migrated everyone over to the same digital ecosystem, patches, versions, now performance settings. The modern consoles groomed gamers for the wold of PC, and now can't figure out why people migrate to PC after.

@HonestHick Honestly I think it's a depressing condemnation of the state of the player base on consoles if the whole console ecosystem pretty much depends on a mediocre cringey game like GTA for it's entire sales cycle. If console is down to being all about GTA and Fortnite....it's definitely a....particular....market

@NEStalgia
Firstly Switch says hello a very successful console and selling games as well and keeping things real.

As for price will be very interesting what price the Switch 2 releases at keep in the cost great zone.

@Pabpictu I’ve had more and better gaming experiences with my trusty consoles than I’ve ever had with a gaming PC. To each their own!

@Vaako007 It depends on region. US, UK, Western Europe, formerly Japan were huge console territories. But they're the only ones. Huge chunks of the world including and especially China are pretty much 100% PC from the start. The consoles kind of have a built in legacy market from "1980s first world countries" but it clouds the real adoption elsewhere.

The flip side of why "console is dying" though, is that the market is going in a direction where average hardware with integrated graphics is "good enough" for the kinds of games most players are actually playing these days. Those new Snapdragon laptops were demo'ed running BG3 at 30fps. Sounds kind of decent as a console on a thin and light mini laptop.

I see the market kind of splitting where buying NO special hardware other than what they already have for normal life (laptop, desktop, phone, ipad whatever) is more than good enough to play most of the games they'd want to play so the casual console market withers, as average tech catches up to where console has been for decades. And then the enthusiast market looking to pay premium for more than what consoles ever offered on "gaming rigs." "Consoles" have been subsidized for 30 years by people that want to play Just Dance and Madden so that Nerdz can play Halo. The numbers crash as those people exit because their normal hardware plays that kind of thing fine.

That leaves a shrinking slice of market for dedicated consoles that are neither "already on your table for no additional cost" nor high performance like a custom rig. A market still exists, but if it keeps shrinking due to overlap with hardware people already have, at some point it stops sustaining itself. My Legion Z1 extreme runs FFXIV at 720p with FSR to 1600x1200 at 60fps. FF7R at 40-45fps. God of War 2018 at 60fps. Starfield at LFMAOLOLNOPE. Neither a "demanding" nor an "easy to drive" game. If I can do that on a handheld with "enthusiast" chip, we're getting close to the time where basically any laptop can run most normal games not designed to push hardware. Then do we need consoles still?

No, the casuals are never going to build E-ATX supertower rigs with RGB's beaming from every oriface with water cooling and a $1000 GPU that weighs more than a cinderblock and be "PC GAMER" nerds. But the point is they don't need to. The casuals can flip open their Acer eBlahBlahBlah 1000 notebook, install steam or go to the Xbox app and download Vampire Surviver just fine without spending hardware money or nerding out. Little Kitty Big City doesn't need 24gb VRAM with 340mm radiators hanging from the top. For the people that want to play Hellblade at 4k, there's big rigs for them to nerd out on.

@OldGamer999 Switch is a special case. It had no right to sell as well as it did, but the idea of portable gaming with HD graphics took the world by storm early and the momentum kept rolling. They'll hold onto that because Nintendo handhelds are Nintendo handhelds, but it will get challenging for Nintendo because if people's phones and laptops can kind of do the same things as a $350-400 switch 2.....will people choose to save money and use what they've got?

@GamingFan4Lyf @WhiteRabbit @JonBoyJ I don't disagree with you guys about PC being more expensive overall, people are lying when they say it's not, but at the same time that price is highly exaggerated. $3k will buy you an enthusiast class 4090 rig. Equivalent of a "Titan" back in the day or equivalent before that of doing 2 cards in SLI/Crossfire. Normal players just ignored that. You don't need an enthusiast class 4090 rig to compete with a flipping Series X and PS5. A 3060 slightly bests a Series X and PS5 and they're like $200. That 4090 rig will likely be relatively competitive to a PS6 bought 2-3 years early.

For a single-platform gamer, obviously console is like half the price. For a multiple-platform gamer though, the cost of both PS+XB+HDDs+subscriptions is easily more than a PC that outperforms either of them. You can best a Series X for $1300-1500 handily. You can equal a Series X for about $850-1150 depending on how you shop. Is it more expensive? Yes. Is it more performant? Yes (those console CPUs are garbage.) Is it a viable alternative for Consumer Bob that buys a console plugs it in? No. But it's not as extremely priced as perceived either.

Consoles at launch are a great bargain compared to their PC equivalents, but after a few years once you get into mid-gen the PC parts come down more favorably again, while the consoles, now, don't come down in price. And that doesn't discuss "pro" models that bring the console up to $1100+ on its own over the generation anyway. If it exists. Which it may not.

And the next consoles are absolutely going to be more expensive. Sony supposedly wanted to do 600 this generation but backed down after XSX was priced. Phil point blank said the subsidy on hardware is over, it doesn't work anymore and to expect maybe higher prices. They were losing $200 on each XSX AFAIK. Realistically? Next gen we're looking at $1200-1400 minimum to own both consoles. Plus additional HDDs for each, plus subscriptions (that keep jumping in price.) And maybe pro models that jack that up to double or more.

We're in a time gap here where PC parts are based on 2024 pricing. The consoles are based on 2019-2020 pre-inflationary pricing. They're itching to catch up, and when they do, it's going to be sticker shock in the console space, and those PC parts will start looking more appealing again. Even the Nvidia ones.

The issue xbox have is that they are moving to a world were xbox is an app rather than a device.... I have a series and I love it... but I recently bought a samusung neoled tv and I have the option to play xbox games without the console on my tv on.my phone... I have 432mb fttp so dont need discs or storage really... so perhaps xbox aren't about console sales anymore maybe they are ahead of the curve or doomed to failure.... with many exclusives to move multiformat such as Halo and Geforce and Steam...are consoles really needed?

@NEStalgia
Only time will tell but I think the switch 2 will do very well in the end.
It will get a very good start from the masses like me who must have it and the fans.

Also Nintendo have spread their general public advertising through theme parks and movies.
This will help it drive through very good sales by the end of its life cycle.

However they should have released May 2024, I’m crying for some big AAA games and they don’t come much better than some of Nintendo’s.
They would have had this year 2024 almost to themselves as the other 2 are doing much at all.

Now next year 2025 the Switch 2 will probably have to deal with Sony AAA games, some more from Xbox, a PS5 Pro and GTA 6 all wanting peoples money.

Nintendo missed a trick not releasing Switch 2 this year.

@Pabpictu Having a console is nothing like owning a PC with installations / updates. Sure games updates but everything is done seemlesly in the background and automated for the most part on a console.

You don't have to deal with driver errors, windows errors, 3rd party installations to manage mods and everything else that PC's have as an increased level of complexity.

I have always been a PC gamer and a console gamer and both have their benefits, but the notion that a PC is as simple as a console is not even remotely true.

@WhiteRabbit The notion that consoles are dying is funny as the people commenting are enthusiasts who will happily buy a gaming PC.

They then conveniently ignore the fact that parents will continue to buy the simplest solution for their kids which is a huge chunk of the console market. Consoles are easy, cheap and rarely require fixing.

Bought my series s last year for £184 on a pre christmas sale here in the uk from bezosnet. Primarily did this for the chance to turn it into a retrogaming monster. But the opportunity to play all the xbox games i had never played in the last 20 years due to being a PS owner was a good opportunity. I just keep rinsing gamepass with the m$ points i built up. I know it's an "I'm alright jack" attitude but im really not fussed what happens from this point on. MS are a trillion dollar company they don't care about me or anyone else. And i feel the same way about sony.

@kuu_nousee i think as long as Sony and Nintendo are selling 100 million units they will continue to be happy in the console space and continue to make exclusive games to drive it’s success. PC has been around for a long time. It has its ebbs and flows in popularity. It’s never going away, it never went away, but i don’t see console’s dying off any time soon. In fact i see MS allowing other companies to make console hardware and grow it even more in choices and pricing. Which could be kind of neat.

@NEStalgia well the whole industry revolves around fortnight, Warzone and GTA well and Candy Crush. Back in our day games were built to be played and enjoyed and moved on to the next release. Now games are built to never end and keep you into that game and its ecosystem forever. So it’s not so much a console issue as it’s the games design. Take Warzone on mobile for an example. That is an insane player retention game. So while i do think GTA will boost numbers for any and all platforms it’s on i don’t think it’s the whole console business. Sony is sitting at 60 million units and GTA6 is still a year away or more. Take a look at what NCAA Football 25 is doing for console sales. Why? Cause it’s only on Gen 9 hardware and players can’t play the weaker PS4 and Xbox One versions. We lived in cross gen way to long to grow Gen 9 but now with NCAA and soonish GTA6, that is going to give a lot of people a reason to upgrade and they will choose a console to play those games on.

@HonestHick It's both. Those games are a different market. It wasn't the market of single play games that switched to playing Fortnite, it's people that would have never played single play games that at least play Fortnite. It's more of a social media platform than a video game. It didn't replace "traditional games", it replaced mall rats hanging out near 5-7-9, and as there's a lot more mall rats than Final Fantasy nerds, the industry started caring only about their revenue. And at least they keep the digital food court from looking deserted.

But that's not the core issue, it's just masking it. The problem is MOST console sales were never to FF nerds, most console sales were to ultra casuals that buy two games ever, probably some puzzle game, or a sports game, or the like. Consoles were never about us even if the companies thought they were. Consoles were about the "non-gamers" that bought them for a game or two.

Those customers exited console gaming entirely. They never wanted a console they just wanted a Tetris thing and something with this years team on it. Without them console numbers would plummet, and publishers would panic. The social media players kind of replaced them, so numbers look stable, and those guys are more profitable, only because of whales.

Where the new crisis is is that for ALL of those markets we're getting to the point where hardware they already have can play the kinds of games they want to play, AND that hardware can then bring software to new markets much easier, because it's already there.

It's also cost. The most popular games are popular because they have one thing in common: They're free. In a world where the most popular things everyone else is doing cost....nothing.....who would buy an expensive box to play expensive games on them? The industry keeps telling us it costs too much, people keep saying games need to keep up with inflation........and they're all ignoring that the games everyone plays are free. THere's a reason everyone's playing them (except GTA, GTA people are special...very very special...) A $5 console and $1 games are still expensive compared to the most popular games. Yes, the whales pump in cash at 100x the rate purchasers do, but those games would collapse if all the free riders vanished.

The real problem for consoles is that in the world of modern general purpose computing hardware, you just don't need a console to accomplish the goal for all the non-enthusiast market anymore. Consoles managed to stay relevant by pushing bleeding edge graphics all the time, but that era is ending as the games to do that cost too much to make.

The market for dedicated games won't go away entirely, but then it gets split between those seeking budget (console) and those seeking performance (PC enthusiast), so the market then starts dividing itself. And as that happens the hardware subsidy razor and blades model fails. And if console has to keep raising prices to mach the falling demand, it'll continue to reduce demand by either pushing people down onto phones/laptops, or pushing them up into PC ("It's not THAT much more!")

But if the console industry is revolving around those few games, the console is obsoleting itself. Subsidized hardware can't thrive on being an onramp to a handful of games that already run on hardware everyone already has.

@NEStalgia i have always said the hardcore market is 30 million or less. So for Sony to hit 100 plus million consoles they were selling mostly to casuals and i agree with that. Thats why i still think in a decade or so Cloud will be very very close to a console like experience enough so that the console market will drop huge numbers. Sure we all laugh off cloud now. Sure it might never get to a place we prefer to play. But for the 70-80 million non hardcore players it will be, leaving PS with around 30 million sales for the titles we all enjoy. But i still see that a good ways down the line. As console launches are still extremely popular even among causals. Just the marketing and hype around PS6 will be enough to get them strong numbers. But i fear software needs to trim the fat and by fat i mean cost. Also something i have been asking for for years and get flake about is. We don’t need 35-50 hour games with loads of filler content like worthless side quests, games after 20 hours are just recycling the core game play mechanics. Make games a little smaller in size. It reduces cost and stuff 90% of player base don’t even explore or care to do. Maybe cause i am getting older but i like a 20 -25 hour linear style game these days. It stays it welcome the perfect amount of time. Sure some games can be big, the elder scrolls and such. But not every game needs to be 50 hours. I do think the console is safe for a good while still. It might not be growing per say but it’s not like it’s a unprofitable business model completely at least not yet.

Side note i am out of work today due to the world wide outage of Windows. I have a blue screen saying windows didn’t load correctly and it ask’s to restart and then it just repeats the cycle. MS is back to being the worse software company ever and i am waiting for more business to understand the saying buy once cry once and go with Apple. HAHA i am a broken record with that. But i am getting paid but no work production and this laptop might even be fried i don’t know. Flights around Europe are stalled and can’t be rebook due to this world wide outage. Not a good day for MS. Time to let the upper leadership go and start over. They are lost.

@Ilyn Today PCs do not require much effort from the user, drivers and installations have been greatly simplified and automated. There isn't much to do beyond downloading the game from the store and playing, setup is usually relatively automatic and easy.

Yes, there is still a difference between console and PC, that is undeniable, and a console is still easier and "direct" to use.

But it is also undeniable that PCs have become more "console" and consoles more "PC", there is a trend that suggests a time when one is not easily distinguishable from the other. And I think this benefits the PC more than the console.

And, well, this is just my opinion, but if you make enough investment in a PC it offers a much more satisfactory gaming experience, you can play at very high resolutions and fps rates and with really impressive visual settings.

I have been a console gamer all my life, and I still love the concept of a console (I have a Series X), I still play quite a few games on it, especially because of the achievement system (many games do not have Xbox achievements on PC and I love the Xbox achievement system) but I see that the direction in which the industry is going makes it more and more dispensable (for me) to have a game console.

@HonestHick 30 million core....yeah...and that's a problem. The casuals have mostly gone in other directions. Mobile. PC - I don't mean 4090 supertowers, I mean thin light laptops that play indies fine. That was the bulk of console sales. Gone. So it's just the core left. And they keep trying to just extract more and more money to make the economics work, and that can't last.

The problem with cloud is the economics are even worse than consoles. It's "cheap" now. But it needs MASSIVE numbers to work, and much higher pricing. Selling people streaming for $20/mo for now sounds hard to pushto casuals. When it hits the real prices of $89.99/mo for medium, $120.00/mo for high.....it's not going to fly. Unlesss they get those "billion" gamers.

The thing with game size is I suspect that most of the cost for for the game is sunk into the core content. So increasing the size with all that bloat costs little to add, and is why they do it, to increase the "value" because the core part already cost more than budget. I.e. trimming the fat probably won't bring their production costs down all that much. OTOH getting rid of -king fruit physics and paying attention to exact shadow casting from eyelashes might.

Ironically I'm going the other way. Huge fan of many many games, but especially with an interest in VR, I'm looking at worlds to get lost in and those are huge. Skyrim with 150 mods, Fo4 with the same, Flight sims, racing sims, NMS, Elite Dangerous, etc etc....not too many games to pick from but they're games you could spend years playing and not have hit all the content. (Or payed for it, DCS World combat sim has like $1400 of DLC available You buy each plane and map and carrier separately. But it's understandable because it's a true sim. To fly it you basically have to learn how to operate the real world vehicle. Every single switch in the cockpit functions properly, etc, so reading the real manual of the real vehicle is almost mandatory....so I can see why one plane is $50. It's cheaper that 14.3 million the real one costs.

Problem with console profitability is it's coming at the cost of just forever raising prices on the remaining customers. Eventually they push too far, to either make it unaffordable to too many, or to become too close to superior alternatives in PC.

Worldwide windows outage? Wow I've been using MS stuff all day and didn't even know there was an issue other than last night Xbox app saying Xbox stuff was down (but worked for me luckily.) Did the full windows updates and everything on 2 machines today!

But why would Windows itself BSOD from that? I definitely haven't seen on on several machines...that may be something else. Or something tied to your corporate security?

@Pabpictu I have a gaming PC, its a 4070 setup so I know exactly what they are like and still say they are far more complex than a console. Even if you ignore the OS differences adding complexity you still have to address Drivers. Depending on your card make you do need to get drivers and keep them up to date because windows will occassionally "helpfully" install drivers without the GPU program that has the setting. Or windows helpfully resetting audio settings after major patches.

Then you have peripherals which most people will have on a gaming rig. Logitech mouse, you need to set up G Hub. Corsair Keyboard and Headset, Also set up iCue. Razor gamepad, get that razor app loaded also. If you want any RGB control then again thats through extra apps.

Anyone commenting on a site like this is by default an enthusiast and probably would have no issue with that stuff. But the point is that the majority of people are not enthusiasts and by that standard PC's are nowhere near as simple as consoles, and likely never will be if you want to keep the benefits of it still running like a PC.

Oh no. Sky is falling... Comments as wild as ever.
Random article with fine print saying these are estimates and don't include major market.. Everyone loses their mind. God love ya.

@NEStalgia no it was a world wide outage caused by an update. Some people didn’t have it tho. Airlines in Europe were affected badly. Look it up, it was pretty big scale. I didn’t even work on Friday cause of it. Got paid to play Xbox. Thanks MS. Haha

@HonestHick Yeah I looked it up after you mentioned it, technically it was not a Microsoft issue at all. There were two issues an Azure/365 outage at a major US datacenter took big cloud services offline for a while. But the big one wasn't an MS issue, it was CrowdStrike pushing an update to Falcon, and like most "security" software, it basically works like a virus, and embeds itself as a driver and replaces parts of the OS with their custom version....and they pushed a garbage system file that rendered the OS unbootable.

This is the rare case these days I'll defend MS. Not their fault. If some self important security company starts replacing Linux and BSD kernels (including MacOS), the same thing would happen.

The lesson here is if you're going to mess with OS system files and push them out in automated updates, maybe, don't update every single customer on the planet all at the same moment? They did the Russians job for them all in the name of stopping the Russians, and charged customers fortunes to do so.....they'd have been better off with the Russians, at least it would be cheaper!

@NEStalgia well I.T finally got my work PC working this afternoon. I missed a day and half of work cause of that. I mean i got paid but no work done so i am behind. That was strange cause i remember doing the update around 2 and i worked after it installed till around 4:45. No issues. Then around 10:30 that night i seen the blue screen come on and i am like whats this? Next morning i was cooked, i could figure it out. Our I.T department was swamped in calls. Glad thats over with. I thought i heard you say your Xbox was out. Mine was fine. I played a lot on Friday cause i couldn’t work. Had to do something while getting paid. Haha

Funny how i was getting paid to game and i still didn’t want to use the Dual Sense. Hahaha

@HonestHick Yeah "friendly" security software. Thank goodness for their protection. Without them hackers could take down your network.... Oh wait. And you pay thousands for that!

Yeah Xbox was half down here. Got the warnings on the Xbox PC app when I went to remote play my xsx. Logins I think are what was down.

@NEStalgia I hear what you are saying. But overall consoles will still have a market share. A share in which there will still be a profit. Think of companies like Ford and lowercase gm whom got rid of many of their sedans since they say the market isn’t there. It’s still there but not as big as CUVs today. So instead of still making sedans that are competitor to still make money they just completely dropped.
There are different tiers of casual gamers. For the longest time many of us console and PC gamers wouldn’t consider mobile phone gamers a gamer. Now that market is huge since it’s so easy to develop a 100,000 derivative of the game Tetris. Which is why as we see today, Microsoft is evolving to have many pieces of the gaming pie to be everywhere. Which is why I think they will still stay with their hardware for the time being.
Integrated graphics chips are strong enough as you accurately state to run the basic games that many casuals like. Like any market there will be brands that define an industry and right now there is a race to be the premier “mobile” or handheld place to play while being a multi function device.
With all of that said the consoles will still have their role as among my nephews in their friends many of them want consoles still even just to play their favorite F2P games.

@Vaako007 IIRC a few years back they have a slightly different version of the sedans thing, not that there wasn't market share, but that they couldn't compete with Asian brands there and thus wanted to pull out to the higher margin, higher end SUV markets only. Not so much that there wasn't a market, but not a market for THEM because competitors did it better, cheaper, and won more market share. Though the idea that Ford and gm see themselves as "only luxury" brands is kind of funny. Champagne and Walmart dreams.

I'm not sure where gaming/hardware goes from here. There's a market for consoles, to a point, but it's not the market that it was. It used to be fueled by casuals buying it for some sports and fitness games, propping up and subsidizing the "hardcore" market. Those people left almost entirely, leaving the hardcore to pay for themselves as the industry tries to tell the hardcore that'll cost more and more and more. Meanwhile every day devices rapidly do catch up to gaming hardware. It's hard to not see the decline in total hardware sales, decline in software sales to the point most revenue just comes from iap for the big service games, and the fact that consoles never really held much market in the world outside a few key areas and see the investment focus in those other areas. IDK where hardware goes from here. On one hand there's a market, on the other hand if there continues to be decline in sales, there's only so much that market can afford to be catered to before prices balloon into something that kills the rest of the market.

It's kind of death by a thousand cuts to the industry both internal and external. I think the industry hasn't really known where it's trying to go for over a decade now, and it's all starting to catch up. It's not just Xbox, PS is hurting too. Sure they post impressive numbers and a lot of their trouble is overspending, but declining sales even as Xbox barely has a presence at the margins, isn't a great sign. The fact that it's landing at a time where hardware prices are now stagnant and hold value forever without big upgrades behind it, it's just crushing the whole business model of consoles, both in increased costs of mfr/reduced profits on hardware, and in inability to discount without taking losses still, crippling their ability to grow the install base. More a Sony problem than Xbox, Xbox cut to $350 and included Diablo 4 and still couldn't move the things, they've already hit their max market size for console, and it's not very large.

I don't see console vanishing overnight, certainly, but we're rapidly getting close to the point where console makers want to tell us their console is $1000+ plus expensive games and paid online etc etc, meanwhile mobiles are already there and getting much better, and work with any controller and PCs aren't much more, and are way better.