Hardware manufacturers have kept the price of home consoles too high for too long, contributing to a slowdown in game sales this year.
That's according to analyst Michael Pachter, who said that a fourth consecutive month of declining sales in the in the US is in-part due to consumer fatigue at the current price points.
This could be fun as they make great tables. Go big or go extinct. Prime your senses for a neural handshake and step into the cockpit of a Jaeger. It is on you to cancel the apocalypse when Pacific Rim Pinball comes to Pinball FX on May 16.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
I only kind of agree with this.
First of all consoles are expensive, i wont debate that but given what you get out of them now days the VALUE of the them seems to be rather high.
Also i think many people are using the current economic "crisis" as a tool to vent and blame this on a systems failures or prehaps their lack of success might be the better term to use.
I think the error in pricing isnt in using expensive tech but rather that they use expensive tech that doesnt drop in price fast enough or regularly(the cell for example), or tech that isnt reliable enough (rrod) and because of these two issues the systems stay more expensive than they "need" to be in the publics eyes.
I know that pachter says that the markets are becoming saturated at these current prices and that this may be their issue but im wondering if its more of a perception thing than an actual one.
Basicly if I remember correctly: the more hardware units sony/ms/ninty produce and sell the lower the costs become for producing them, due to the economics of scale. Whether they decide to pass the reduced costs on to the consumer is another matter, its all about profits vs demand if they are in that position. If there is a healthy demand then they can sit and count profits all day, if not theres nothing like a price reduction to stimulate sales. I may be wrong but I'm sure it won't be long before someone corrects/mocks me. :P
Gee, consoles that have been out a few years, cost a few hundred dollars, are in a AAA-game summer dry spell (lets hear it for...Call of Jaurez and inFAMOUS?), and are competing in the middle of a recession have their sales slowing down?
Imagine that.
IMO all consoles are priced well really. For what you get they are a decent price. I have a PS3 and the things it can do is amazing. Had it over 2 years now and it cost £425. Now you can get one for less than £300 which I think is a great deal. They cost a lot to make and Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have to make a profit.
we all know what console and handheld need a price cut