Without any prior warning, Sony has increased the price of the PS5's DualSense controller in a number of key regions, including the US, Europe, and Australia. To begin with, keen-eyed onlookers noticed that American retailers such as Best Buy and Target had updated the price points for various pads, bumping them up by $5 pretty much across the board.
Then, a few hours later, Sony's own PlayStation Direct store did the same. Again, this seems to be a flat $5 increase regardless of the controller's design. So, for example, the standard white DualSense has gone from being $70 to $75, while some of the more colourful editions have crept up from $75 to $80.
And now, we've got confirmation that the same is happening here in the UK — a straight increase of £5 — and across other European countries.
There's no getting around it: this is a pricey console generation. Sony in particular has been pressing on the upper limits of what people would consider expensive for years now, and just about everything that's tied to the PS5 comes equipped with a premium price tag. From first-party games to accessories like the DualSense, being a PlayStation fan certainly ain't cheap. It's also worth mentioning that the company recently cranked up the PS5's price in Japan.
And of course, with the PS5 Pro heavily rumoured to be launching this year, all eyes will be on the cost. If Sony's happy to ship its DualSense Edge controller for $200 / £210 — a device aimed squarely at the hardcore — then you can probably bet on the firm going big with the Pro's price tag.
What do you make of this latest price increase? Wait patiently for someone to mention stick drift in the comments section below.
Is a DualSense worth this new asking price? (1,217 votes)
- Yes, it's a top quality controller
- Only if the controller was being improved
- Nope, it's overpriced now
- No, it was already too expensive
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[source direct.playstation.com, via x.com]
Comments 125
Firts of what's sure to be a 100+ comment thread.
Usually this late in the generation you would see prices going down, not up!
With all the recent price rises, I'm starting to feel Sony are really fleecing consumers. Not having any viable competitor is really not good for gamers and is only going to make them more complacent.
Sony are taking the piss these days with the nickel and diming.
High Costs Drifter.
That's not great. I've had to buy 5 of them as 4 now have controller drift. The PS5 Dual sense is both the best and my least favourite controller from Sony. Just constantly breaks and will now cost more to replace 😪
Because of course they do this. 1.9 billion net profit isn’t enough for greedy fingers.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/08/07/sony-earnings-q1.html
This is why we need more competition and why it’s a shame Microsoft screwed up so massively during the Xbox One days.
Considering everything has gone up in price I don't know why Sony is expected not to do something similar. Since Covid prices have universally risen at the same time as the value of what our money can buy has dropped. It's hardly worth having savings because why put off buying now when the value of your pounds will be less over time.
Don't worry. Lier Starmer will save the economy with his cash grab on old folk and new taxes on electric vehicles.
Software sales are in freefall so they're trying to make up the subsidies and generate more margin on hardware.
Love him or loathe him, Phil Spencer wasn't wrong when he said the console subsidy model isn't really viable anymore with moore's law no longer valid. It's hitting Sony too, and they're making changes to the model gradually until nobody remembers how it used to work.
I don't think the Pro, or the PS6 pricing is going to resonate with traditional console gamers at all. It'll look affordable compared to whatever Nvidia's selling on Blackwell, but that's about it.
Price creases aren't great at any time but I already own 2 Duel sense controllers and unless one of them breaks I'm very unlikely to ever need to purchase another one.
Long story short I won't be losing any sleep over it as it will (hopefully) have Zero impact on me personally
Really would help soften the blow if they included a larger battery at this stage.
Well... Concord loss recovery starts today.
@Alps_Stranger ha! Nice
Though Sony did decrease the cost of 1st party games, at least with Astrobot it seems. They'll put that back up.
I said the other day with the failure of Concord Sony will start raising prices in various areas, and seems I was right (or most likely a coincidence 😅).
@StonyKL It's not that hard to replace the sticks in the Dualsense. Not quite as easy as a Joy-Con, but if you can open a remote you can open a Dualsense. Usually the problem is the little discs that the internal stick nubs fit into.
Just never try replacing the sticks on the Xbox Elite 2. Worst fix of my life.
@riceNpea I was under the impression that Team Asobi set that price point, no?
Also, $5 increase for what ? Totally out of touch.
@AccessibleDaydream oh right, thought it was Sony 🤷♂️
The £5 increase is so that's in line with the cost of a McDonalds Happy Meal.
We know consoles are sold at a loss, but I'd never considered accessories to be the same way.
Unfortunately with the Covid conductor and rare-metal shortages, a lot of suppliers learned just how critical their products are, and decided a little price increase was due. That decision has trickle-down effects, causing the costs of a lot of things to go up. I wasn't surprised to see the console cost go up, so I suppose it makes sense that other electronics under the umbrella also be looked at for increases.
But I have an Edge, so hopefully I'll never have to pay the increased cost of a standard Dualsense!
Sony giveth, and Sony taketh away. All in a week's time. Couldn't they just accept the win Astro Bot gave them.
This is the future with a dominant, and possibly only high-end console. Sony are able to raise the prices of their consoles and accessories because they know there really aren't any other options now. Also, this is Sony preparing the ground for the quite possibly staggering cost of the Pro. Usually, by now, consoles would be cheaper than they were when they were first released. This has not happened this generation, indeed, instead of price drops, we have seen price increases. Usually a few years after a console releases the price drops, and then the Pro iteration releases at the original consoles price point (or thereabouts). This generation, Sony have increased the price of their consoles because, quite simply, they can. We are a captive market, with Xbox offering little to tempt us.
So, with a PS5 console costing close to £500, I think it safe to assume that the Pro will cost more by probably at least £100, What that also indicates is that the PS6 will likely cost north of £600. Possibly a fair bit north.
Best get saving now, I guess... 🤑
INCREASE!?!? When are we going to start getting 3rd party controllers with lower prices? Every console ever has had cheaper 3rd party alternatives for that 1 time you need a 2nd or 3rd for company. We already have 4, white, purple, red and black b/c 2 of them, red and purple, were unusable with all of the drift. Normally I'd fix them myself but I don' town a soldering iron. And the battery life is pretty bad as well, bought my first spare for when I needed a recharge.
And now their rising the price? They better be offering free drift repair like Nintneod did w/ the Joycon, I took advantage of that as those drifted as well.
This is crazy. 🤑
@RoomWithaMoose sounds too good to be true but if so I might just have to give that a go. I'll be properly made up if I can fix even a few of them. Might be able to finally get back to playing multiplayer with my kids. Thanks for the heads up. Right off to youtube then...
Glad I impulse purchased a black model last black Friday for $35 even though I didn't need it.
@Rob_230 Seriously. The battery life sucks so bad.
Gotta make up money after burning 9 figures with Concord.
Still would like a controller option without a speaker, microphone etc.
Bro wtf…. Seriously
In my experience they're far too fragile, it's basically a disposable.
What is with these poll answers? “Nope, it's overpriced now” and “No, it was already too expensive” are literally the same thing reworded so are simply splitting the no vote.
Looks like Sony started it's plan B codename "Revenge for Concord" I expect PS5 Pro will be tagged with £1000 price.
@ZeD Well the people that work for Sony also want raises to go along with inflation for life expenses. Also Sony as an entity has bills to pay like property tax, electricity, etc...
To be expected as everything else has gone up in price. Its called inflation. The people that work at Sony also want higher compensation and Sony has bills to pay too. The biggest voting bases don't learn and will continue to vote for people that enable inflation more. Its a vicious cycle with no overnight fix. Lastly gaming is a vanity hobby.
@Vaako007 Your argument would be understandable if this money actually went to employees. We all know that big companies prioritize investors not employees or consumers
And the crazy thing is it’s still the best deal out of the top 3! Sure Xbox pads are very slightly cheaper, but not by much considering they have no battery, touchpad, motion controls, haptics etc. and the joycons!? Don’t even get me started on those!
Still, I cring when one drops on the floor. Those trigger springs snap so easily. One hard fall and they can go. I’ve already broken one by having it slip off the couch.
Concord fail.so sony making PlayStation fan pay for it🤔.everything is increasing and its not for the better.psplus essential use to be 37$ 42$ on ebay.now on psn its 80$ wtf.its ridiculous.word up son
Glad I bought my replacement yesterday then and got the protection plan
@thefourfoldroot1 Xbox controllers don't run on batterys? Do they run on magic?
@Toot1st They run on AA alaklines, NIMH, or an official rechargeable you put into the battery compartment, sold separately.
I actually like their solution because it's a user-replaceable battery rather than just throwing away the controller and buying a new one, but, it does mean the cost is higher than it looks to buy the battery. OTOH you can keep your battery back and use it in new controllers which is nice and "green" if you're into that. I've been using the same slightly used battery I purchased in 2018 in 3 controllers.
@rjejr Welecome to zero competition. Everyone wanted Sony to "win" the console war, everyone wanted Xbox to fail, everyone wanted just one box to play everything on, and here we are. You can go to PC or take up knitting, otherwise you're stuck with whatever they sell you at whatever price they decide to charge. The nightmare of a console gamer.
Too many people are too young to remember the NES monopoly in the 80's to appreciate what they've been asking for.
Disappointing. I’m hoping the PS1 style dualsense is being released as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations so that will cost more now.. but why fool myself? It will be sold out from scalpers and resellers anyway.
Controllers are already too expensive and with the notorious stick drift problems every controller will get, I just think it's a joke the prices get more and more expensive!
So your forcing people to buy after market, used, etc because current prices are daylight robbery, considering your guaranteed together stick drift or battery become dreadful after some time and only lasts 40mins before needing a charge,
Due to governments consistently printing more money (quantitative easing) the value of our £/€/$ decreases (inflation) and is worth less. For example the USD has lost 86% value over the last 50 years.
Is not so much prices going up rather than you need more money to purchase something. The effect is the same though.
Sadly this is being felt more since covid, however there seems to be many companies taking opportune moments to increase prices for no reason, citing the above as the reason.
All I wanted was classic versions with coloured buttons and a coloured logo.
But no, Sony just gives me a price increase…
This is just the beginning, with Xbox slowly finishing as a console and games going multi console. It will just leave Nintendo and Sony in the console market.
The high end market being Sony all on their own doing as they wish.
They charge higher prices in the TV market where they have lots of competition, so god knows what they will do in the future with PlayStation prices in a captured market.
We're putting out a PS5 Pro soon. No big deal if you pay an extra $5 for a controller now too, right? Hello? Damn, guess we misjudged the economy...
My first DualSense is still going strong after 18 months and a few hundred hours, so no issues there. The battery life is atrocious, but it is what it is. I always turn off the haptic feedback anyway - it'd be nice if I could just use a DualShock 4 - in my opinion, the best console controller ever devised. All of the features that I want are still there. It doesn't make any technical sense that we can't use them on PS5 games.
I'll pick up a spare maybe on Black Friday and order some hall sensors for standby in case one of them goes out.
So basically we're being punished for Concord's failure 😑 I highly doubt this would have happened if Concord was breaking sales records, more reason to hate the game and lol if they think they can bring it back in any capacity.
Being honest in the UK where I work.
Our materials and parts have nearly doubled in price.
Wages have increased by about 20% over two years.
Cost of running a company, gas, electricity and insurance prices increased.
More staff have been employed, some due to slower working due to working from home, which everyone thinks they are entitled to nowadays.
So prices of the end product will increase.
Somehow as a country or maybe across the whole world, just everything is costing more.
From toilet roll to a top end sports car.
Goddammit Sony, stop building to PS3 era ego! Hardware shouldn't be getting more expensive the further into a generation! I don't care how many consoles you're selling. You are not showing the games, just more expensive hardware...
Also they should be decreasing the price if we take into the account the terrible battery and stick drift. My two launch Dualsense last 10-12 minutes playing Astro Bot (I put a timer) and 30 with a regular game!
Still waiting on them to improve the battery life.
Obviously, Sony have worked very hard to fix the drift issues found in Dualsense controllers to justify the price increase. (Hint: They haven't)
I still have my original ps5 controller.. if it starts to drift you just gtta open it up and blow the cat hair out of.. maybe get a flash and tweezers and get ALL the hair... but yea they last but people just thing drift means throw it out... just clean it out
No need for an increase ,dualsenses are already enough money,luckily I've got 2 and won't be buying for sometime
Sony is just raising the price of everything nowadays.
@Waitinonpsvr2 I live in a pet and smoke free house. I have had 2 controllers since launch. One of them developed stick drift. I have replaced the cheap potentiometers with better quality ones. The problem arises from the cheap/stingy amount of graphite conductive paint they have applied to the potentiometers. I never had any problems with controllers since 1991. Just these.
@VeldinX How are they the same thing? They're totally different...
"Nope, it's overpriced now" = post-increase
"No, it was already too expensive" = pre-increase
That £65 for ps5 controller and £50 for series x controller.
But then we have adaptive triggers, haptics and sound from the centre speaker, which I especially enjoy.
However I do prefer the series x controller in the hand to hold and the way the thumb sticks are positioned and the rear triggers shape and design.
Is the PS5 controller worth £15 more, depends really. I find the adapter triggers are a gimmick really, the haptic feed back great if used correctly and I do really enjoy the speaker in the controller all those nice sounds in your hand.
Tough one really, but for the most immersive experience when used correctly like in Astro Bot the PS5 controller wins, but a lot of time the controller is not really programmed that well in games.
I seriously wouldn’t mind paying that but I have sent two controllers back to sony for repairs and now one of the controllers is failing again. I have had all Playstation consoles and never ever has this happened to me before and no I am not throwing the controllers around. For £5 more I would seriously want to see them put hall effect sticks in the controllers cause apart from the stick drift the Dualsense is absolutely amazing
@Bizzy Have you tried disassembling? just get it to where you pop out the sticks out the back so you can blow all the crap out of it. Im not kidding sometimes its like literally 1 hair in there... use a flash light and tweezers and look hard.
@Bizzy Are you being sarcastic cause I can’t tell. 3 controllers with stick drift and they want more money. That’s taking the piss,if they put hall effect in the controller then and only then can Sony ask for more money
@Waitinonpsvr2 To change the potentiometers you need to strip the controller down and de-solder and solder. I have done that. Cost me £2. I'm not afraid to fix my own equipment. They both work fine now.
@alex8329 No, 1 controller that developed stick drift twice which I fixed myself. Hall effect sticks would be the way to go. They won't do that as they are making money hand over fist by people buying new ones.
@Vaako007 stop deep_throating the boot, mate
@NEStalgia dang could we at least get better battery life? Dual Sense 2 needs to figure out battery and not have squared off edges. Please round it out like the Edge. That feels so much better. Ok ok I’ll stop before i go into a Sony controller history lesson you’ve heard a million times. I am set on controllers so this don’t bother me, but gaming sure is getting more and more expensive. That cheaper Series S might be looking better and better for Christmas gifts for people on a tight budget and hey it runs all the most played games really well. FIFA,COD, Fortnite and others. No one that don’t care will say it sucks cause it don’t run BG3 with spilt screen.
@OldGamer999 the sentence you're looking for is:
Capitalism ruins everything around me.
(C.R.E.A.M.)
@OldGamer999 I know and I can see that but I do think if Sony wants more money they need to get rid of the bad analog sticks cause from pa1 to ps4 I have never had stick drift, on the ps5 the third controller starts to have stick drift and 2 of the controllers were with sony for repairs for just that reason
I'm glad that I have enough controllers and that I don't need to buy new ones
@OldGamer999 I’m with you. I like the features in the DS. But the Xbox controller feels better in hand. Has the better triggers and stick layout. Again that’s subjective and just for me and my play style. But the DS is the best controller Sony’s ever had for me and if i had to use it as my daily driver i think i could. I couldn’t say that for PS3-PS4. Those didn’t win me over in anyway. I only played exclusives on them.
@Uromastryx Yep, stick drift on 2 controllers and third one is slowly coming. I would rather spend £60 for someone to put hall effect in my controller before I buy a new one fron Sony….shame really because otherwise the dualsense is really amazing
For the first time I've went 3rd party. Sick to the back teeth of expensive first party controllers developing stick-drift.
It's unforgivable and has been for some time due to hall-effect tech being around for decades now.
One could think our console makers don't mind stick drift one iota if it means we part with more of our cash and buy another of their efforts...
I guess record profits isn't enough for the scum.
@StonyKL Find and pay someone to put hall effect into one controller and you’ll have it probably forever, it’ll cost as much as a new controller but it’s worth it. Sony should be sued for the stick drift
Just wait for a sale. I got a black one with Forbidden West for £45 the other year. Good old Argos.
@alex8329 yup ive had 2 with drift and 1 dead battery and my red one currently has about 20mins battery life, the worse thing is throwing them out when they are useless,
Literal money in the bin because sony are cheap, I mean stick drift has been really evident since ps5 first release,
And the hall effect has been around since what..1890 or something...
Stuff like this makes me hope Sony gets kicked in the teeth again like at the beginning of the PS3 generation.
As soon as their competition evaporates their bad practices increase. They need competition to keep them in line.
The PS5 pad is a relatively shoddy controller as-is, easily the worst of the PS family imo, the extra price incease on top is an insult.
@PerpetualBoredom
Certainly seems a bit ruined at the moment for sure.
I remember when prices would go down mid-gen
It's a stomach-able increase providing they improve the quality too.
This whole generation is a joke
Just as well I already have 4 DualSense controllers with zero stick drift
My original white ones rarely get used, one on my Galaxy Tab S9 and one on my Nvidia Shield and my two black ones are what I use on my black PS5
@CERBERUS40000, you're a lucky one, I have had 4 DualSense, over time all with drift, one of them in both sticks. :S
The biggest piece of junk they've ever made and they're raising the price.
They seem greedy asf but everyone will still buy it all😂 remember when they put games up to 70 think it was like 6 to 12 month before Microsoft and Nintendo put their prices up lol
If I needed one I would just wait for black Friday and from a supposed leak, a new improved dualsense is launching alongside the Pro.
Whether it's true or not I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
@MrMagic exactly! If I need one, I will wait for the periodic sale, tho I would not mind picking up the Astrobot one rn.
They better start solving these drift issues at $75.
Inching closer and closer to a premium controller prices.
@HonestHick Yeah, people call the S a mistake, but I think it knows its market well. It's not for enthusiasts and enthusiast games are running into problems. It's for the masses, like Wii, like Switch, like phones....like PS4. It's not selling great especially outside the US, but as PS gets ever MORE expensive, without really a cheaper option it's still an upgrade path for PS4 owners without big digital libraries they might take. We'll see how history judges it. Horrid marketing killed it before it really got the credit it deserved.
Still 59.99 on Amazon so either it's not really applicable to most retailers or it hasn't happened.
Either way buy one now then if you think you'll need it.
There are some low IQ people on the Internet though suggesting a sudden price increase is because of Concord. My favorite I've read today is they're launching PS5 pro to appease shareholders because of Concords failure. As if they just quickly put together a console a few weeks after Concord failed to profit. The Internet , Bastion of zero intelligence
When they charged me $80 for the Astro Bot controller, I honestly didn't think too much of it because it was a special edition.
Charging everyone an extra £5 for a controller to fork back money lost on Concord is absolutely WILD
@Anthony_Daniels wild that you don't think that is the real reason
Sony are making my decision to move to PC easier and easier.
@NEStalgia "Everyone wanted Sony to "win" the console war,"
I'm ok w/ Sony winning the console war, and Nintendo winning the handheld war, but I don't understand the lack of 3rd party options, that has never happened to me before going back to the PS1, Gamecube, Dreamcast, etc, I've always had a couple of 1st party and a couple of 3rd party for when you just have people over. It's been years now and not a single cheap controller, just a bunch of $170 ones.
You know what the USA is like, I'm honestly surprised their hasn't been a class action lawsuit about Sony's monopoly of the controller market. It's not normal.
Been a Playstation gamer for 25 years but this is getting so insane. And this happening NOW with Inflation hitting everybody and its already hard for people to get by with higher prices and less money. Like there could not be a WORSE time for Sony to do this. Gaming used to be an affordable hobby but now I can't afford most games at launch and even a goddamn controller costs a fortune.
@Foxx_64740 it does go to the employees mate even if indirectly. As like I said running costs go up. And most employees receive between 1-5% merit increase each year. Or perhaps they keep prices the same each year and fire more people each year to keep up with running costs.
@PerpetualBoredom I’m just stating the obvious mate. People would cry if they kept prices the same and fired more people as a result. Everything else has gone up in life that matters. The gaming industry has not really increased in price despite being a hobby. Prices of games and consoles have not kept up with inflation. The boot reference isn’t necessary here as like I said gaming is a hobby.
What did they improve the controller battery life from 4 hours to
a whopping 4.5 hours or something?
@rjejr parts of Europe are doing that but not the US. They don't seem too big to fail enough for legal immunity. It does seem weird nobody challenges them.
Too bad a lot of the games don't take full advantage of the controller functions like Astro. I wouldn't mind paying for it if it was universally supported everywhere but it seems to mostly just be rumble.
Always been disappointed with most of the features. Lot of games don't use them at all years into the cycle.
If you've bought more than 2 controllers so far, whats the problem? You've for sure got the money.
Sony is a mess. We blow millions of a failure live service project and likely more failures to come. What do we do says Sony?
Price gouge our hardware of course!
@StonyKL I fixed the drift with cheap thumbsticks from Amazon.
I'm happy with my one controller, I play games by myself so don't need an extra one.
@IamJT Think about that. You fixed a $75 Sony premium component with cheap Chinese carp from Amazon.
Do better Sony.
There's always the $200 edge where you can fix the cheap sticks for $20 a pop officially....
This is why I do not pay more than £50 for a video game, Sony knows it can charge more and people keep paying, Happy 30th Anniversary everyone
@Enigk yh I got a cosmic read from Argos for £45 at the start of the year I think people have forgotten about it when it comes to video games and they usually do pretty good deals
@sonicmeerkat turn the microphone off and Dim the light on the controller and you'll get a lot more of it than four hours
@StonyKL Really 5 controls? I've never had a problem with stick drift on any of the controllers I've got and I'm even using the day one dualsense still! My kids use them, I've played thousands of hours since launch. Maybe take a look at how you're using or looking after them?
@Zemo55 Sounds like I'm very unlucky. I store them in their official charge stand after use. I blame the kids but they get time restricted to 1 hour a day and only play fortnite and the controller gets put on the charge stand or they get a ban for the following day (yes I'm an ogre!). Not exactly excessive use, and they've never thrown the controller in a rage like I used to do every time I fought M. Bison on the SNES 😂
DualSense 5 controllers have always felt cheap and after having the bundled white one going left constantly, it had to be replaced. The replacement is already feeling sub-par despite a lack of use.
I have 3 Official DualShock 3s which are still working fine, I have 4 DualShock 4s which are still working fine whereas the 5s controller just feel brittle.
@Rob3008 They're definitely turning a profit this generation, rather than loss leading on the console and making up for it on accessories and software.
I suspect the lack of competition is part of it, but not necessarily because it's intentional, but that there's simply more demand for PS5 Dual Sense controllers because there's more PS5s out there.
@Dampsponge that ever company not just Sony everyone has been raising prices is it fair nope but that is capitalism for u
@Corc11
Got to be satire or I fear for your intelligence level
@Bizzy I understand that you can fix them yourself and I might be forced to do so but it shouldn’t be our problem to fix in the first place and it’s frustrating because you spend good money on the controllers. It’s disrespectful to people. I wouldn’t complain if the controllers would last for something like 3 years or so but 2 of them had stick drift in less then a year
Somewhat ironically, I never had any intention of buying Concord the game but would have snapped up Concord the controller had it been available in Australia.
I would love to pay more for a PS5 controller that do not suffer from Joystick drift after only 5 month of standard use...
@NEStalgia Series S is a good machine. Like you said sells well in the US. I do wish the Series X sales would pick up more tho. But next gen looks like a PC/Console with a new windows Ui. Rumored to be easier to port PC titles and then the handheld using the same windows Ui. That is a better lineup than Series in my opinion.
Moving on to the PS5 Pro today. Looks like that $5 increase to the controller is for something after all. Rumored to be shown or at least mentioned will be the new controller which adds a better battery and enhanced triggers. Not sure what to expect of that, maybe they don’t break as easy? I don’t know. But those two updates warrant $5 buck in my eyes. With most games this gen being GPU bound i think the Pro is going to look nice on a lot of games. As for PSSR that will take some time to see how it works and the gains games are getting from it. But console needs that cause they lack that at the moment. AMD’s just looks bad cause it is taking a low res imagine and making it even more blurry as to at least on PC it’s cutting a hi res imagine. The PS5 Pro should be able to do that. I think it’s gong to be good. Can’t wait to talk with you after the presentation.
@alex8329 I absolutely agree with you 100%. It's wrong on Sony's behalf!
Have to claw back that £200 million and then some don't they
@HonestHick Series was disappointing from day 1. What I expected them to do was start iterating with the "mid gen" format, except permanently that each new box was an upgrade to the previous, like the PC model, and scrap generations, just a more powerful box with games running on all of them. More like the phone/PC model of constant upgrades. So when they announced Scarlett was just.....another new generational console, right after the 1X I thought it sucked out of the gate. It's an X1X Pro. But it turns out that's all Sony's doing too.
@NEStalgia Yeah the Hardware game this gen has been odd to me. Especially since Xbox didn’t even upgrade the controller or the Ui. Making it really feel like a One X Pro.
I give Sony for making PS5 at least feel new. Now that’s good and bad in some ways pending who you ask. Outside of the Cards i like the PS5 Ui a tad more than PS4’s but i know that is subjective. I also like the Dual Sense much better than the Dual Shock 4.
@HonestHick People laugh and say he's applying Xbox problems to everyone, but I think Phil was spot on. Hardware in general has massively jumped in price, largely because after the silicon shortage the producers figured out just how much their product is critical, and how much they can charge, and there's really only 3 of them including Intel who until now only made their own (and still had the other 2 make most of theirs.) And because there's no major leaps anymore in hardware, so it takes a decade or more to jump where we used to in 2-3 years, and prices simply don't fall as a result.
The Gillette model is how SONY (not Nintendo, SONY) undercut the competition and made the model of subsidizing amazing hardware for cheap, paying for it with overpriced games and accessories, and then making it back up on the backend with a die shrink and cost cut on the hardware so what starts as a loss becomes a profit as the hardware ages.
Now they want to compete with PC directly...you can't subsidize that, you can't make money in the back half and we're seeing that pressure. They're trying to sell gaming PCs that cost less than gaming PCs while not losing money, and this is the result....you basically pay as much as a low end gaming PC to get a mid end gaming PC and then pay the difference in subs, games and accessories.
It's a stupid model. Consoles should be consoles and unique and inferior to PCs. The Gillette model really hasn't worked since PS2, and it's even worse than PS3 in effectiveness now. It was a 90's strategy for a 90's tech pace, and a 90's economy, but the whole industry for consoles is now designed around that strategy that doesn't work today. Here's the result.
Only Nintendo figured out the way to avoid that, and that way is to sell antiquated hardware for cheap-ish that can run the PC games from 10 years prior, barely.
@NEStalgia i agree whole heartedly. Phil for the record knows his stuff and largely speaks logical. But hey fanboys fanboy, what can we say. Someone has to be the “bad” guy so the internet has someone to troll and yell about. I am a Phil guy. He has himself backed into a corner saving Xbox with MS money. He now owes the company 100 billion but hey, he did what he could. Thats my 2 cents.
Yeah the Sony model of making money on the backend has long gone been over largely. PS5.i think makes a few bucks the last i read but who knows how reliable that source of info was. I love consoles and just want them to be consoles. Run what you can from PC of course. But this isn’t a game of keep up with the jones. Look $700 is to much for the Pro, i will still get it but it better run GTA 6 and a few other titles i am looking forward to really well and i am sure it will but that is still a rude price. But that’s the cost of building something like that. Nintendo may hit with a steep price too if rumors are correct. So here we go, lot’s of money. Next Xbox will be expensive, and that’s before they let Asus and others build Xbox’s with same to higher specs. Those could hit $800-$1000 if they go bonkers with it. But i mean even a Steam Deck Oled is pretty expensive. The Series S is the best way into gaming if on a budget. Will black Op’s 6 and GTA 6 move some players to that? Time will tell.
@NEStalgia i did want to add while i mentioned the PS5 Pro price. It does have wi-fi 7 which is nice and 2 TB SSD which is also a nice spec bump. So that is something for the extra money.
@HonestHick yeah and it's right in line with Phil's comments. The problem is console gaming market is built on cheap hardware to play games on. With consoles chasing Pc prices and flagship phone prices IMO they make themselves irrelevant. It feels like an incredibly stupid move overvaluing their place in the market.
@Anthony_Daniels then you'll be happy to know it was satire
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