Opinion: "Console pricing has gone terribly wrong" - Rob Fahey | GamesIndustry.biz

[CaptainToad]

I thought this was a decent article.

Monster Hunter is a hugely mass-market game in Japan (and it's getting there overseas as well, especially thanks to the success of World and now Wilds), and it got there essentially by appealing strongly to teenage players who had aged out of Pokémon and leapt on the PSP versions of the game as something to play co-operatively with their friends.

Around the tail end of the 2000s, the phenomenon of Monster Hunter was unavoidable in Japan; every mall food court in the country had at least one table of teenage boys taking down monsters together on their PSPs.

The game now has a significant adult contingent of players, of course (as does Pokémon, for that matter), but those were its roots – and the affordability and accessibility of the PSP platform in the latter years of its lifecycle were fertile soil in which those roots were planted.

That soil now risks becoming entirely barren.

Console pricing has gone terribly wrong | Opinion

Monster Hunter Wilds is one of the best-selling games of the year – which makes it all the more notable that Capcom pre…

www.gamesindustry.biz

 

[Retro Doomer]

Game and Console pricing has gone trough the roof with some exceptions like the Xbox360 and Ps2 where many games are still affordable with some crazy outliers.
Anyway I blame the Scalpers who buy the games and consoles in mass and jack up the prices to rip us all of.
I also did just find a Videos regarding this

I also like Hidden Gem videos but I also hate them at the same time as I can say shit that price is now gonna shot trough the roof.

 

[Frickinfrik]

And if you buy an expensive console nowadays, everyone will hate you and want to kill you for some stupid ludicrous reason. Just ask this guy. Twitter is such a vile place.

 

[ScriptorFaust]

i wish not every article would start with "prices, compared to back then, are lower" when the cost of living of basically everything has gone up. I know that many are often going to explain this in the next couple of sentences but there are people who stop at that, take to Social Media and trumpet that everybody should shut up, we are the lucky chosen and entitled.

Regardless, I think he points out some very crucial things to consider for consoles in regards to smartphones and past cultivation. I did have a TV in my room, we never owned a PC (bought my own laptop with first job money) and so I was used to playing consoles for many years. This shifted when I got my PC because games were cheaper and nearly everything has a way to be played backwards compatible (and it even runs console games in emulation). Now I would never consider to buy a new console, regardless of exclusive titles. If margins are that thin, chances are extremely high for us to see the game release on PC anyway, which is already happening for games like the third part of FF7R. We still have a SNES and a PS2, which is plenty of opportunity to let my son play old games on these if he doesn't want to play them emulated. If I wouldn't show him these systems, I don't know how and why he would actually get in contact with a new console, which will always have inferior specs to our PCs. I do also own a Steam Deck which works extremely well as both, handheld and portable console, with a SD full of classic games.

The industry might have overlooked facts like aging target audience and games that turn into eco systems on mobile phones and older systems (Fartnite and Roblox). The need to upgrade the system isn't there.

The last bit about BF6 makes me think about the release of BL4 right now. The game seems to be good but offers abyssmal performance, even for people atop the minimum specs. My 4070Super should be easily able to handle it but I'm holding off for now. What bothers me about that game is, to artificially (literally) inflate the minimum specs, DLSS is always a given. But I don't want this crap. I hate input lag, I hate blurriness and motion blur in general. On PC, we can at least adjust many settings but I fear for console players when Sony decides to deflate their prices by putting hardware under the hood that's only able to run certain games with the help of FSR -- and you can't turn it off.

 

[qw90700]

What a rubbish article, and what a rubbish mentality stupid as dishwasher Capcom have. In short Capcom blame their console games can't sell much because console prices are "too much", but in reality it's a luxury item and for luxury items price of luxury items doesn't matter, what matters is if it worth to even buy. They may complain about PS5 and PS Vita and may question why people don't buy them as much as they did buy PS2 and PSP, and the answer is not in their price but in the way they give no reason for lots of people to buy them. PS2 and PSP has amazing library which is why it sold that much, and Switch 1 has interesting library that is most importantly can even attract random woman who never played a game before that is business success moment here, and they didn't question its price at all when they saw an interesting game to buy on it which is what matters.

Another bollocks POV of Capcom is they act like people don't play games on PC, you already sell your games on PC that really works ok even on PCs that is old and not designed for gaming so on paper you have no issue. I imagine people play their beloved Monster Hunter games on Switch too.

However Capcom is stupid for praising Switch 2 just because of price and whatnot alone when it's a rubbish console for a little better than previous gen consoles when next gen consoles almost became "previous gen" already and most importantly people don't wanna risk their console bricked for nothing when Nintendo seem to wanna have an excuse to brick your console just so you can buy another one.

Capcom thinking too backwards about it because they are an old company and they are a company. They don't think like a big company, they think like a grocery shop mentality lol. Meaning, companies have standard way of operating in the context of trying to make subjectivity of society turned into mathematical understanding in the context of human sciences to use past data to predict future. They also use past to comprehend now too which is Business 101 moment. But then Capcom also think about it only in context of cost and profit like a grocery shop lol. Back then video gaming was expensive but most importantly video game console gaming was popular. It was cool to have them and it was only way to play games. Now smartphones dominate lives so much people wanna use smartphones for everything. It makes people spend their money on smartphones instead and they question "why I cannot play my Switch game on my smartphone" and they say "I ain't gonna buy a Switch when I already have a smartphone, it's an unnecessary expense". So key here is now we live in a world that we wanna buy lots of expensive things, and technology is so advanced "it doesn't make sense" to buy a video game console at this point because people are too busy with smartphones.

If Capcom and any other video game company feels like Capcom then they will combine their power to release a Gamer Smartphone (GSP) which would be the new cool shit for kids to flex in school lol. "Oh you still playing Angry Birds? My poor boi, Imma play Resident Evil Requiem on me GSP and you just watch!!!" lolol.

TL;DR: Ancient Capcom mistakenly believe the only issue of PS5 is its price which is why they cry like a baby for console pricing is in their way of gaining more customers to sell more when what matters for consoles for real is it having library people like, which is why PS2 and Switch sold that much for example. Capcom also should give up on consoles, they should invest on PC market further and see necessary future in gaming smartphones.