Maybe the Gabecube will launch with a “console price” after all.
I’m kinda hoping valve waits for component costs to calm down before releasing it - otherwise I could see the price making it DOA.
Haha ok buddy, can’t wait to see you puzzling about why millennials hate game consoles or whatever when launch sales numbers are rightly in the shitter
The second video game crash…
Im hoping independent developers fill the void. Honestly they already are. Haven’t the last couple of big sellers been FAR from AAA?
Just gonna throw this out there; If you’ve never had a Nintendo Wii, I’d genuinely recommend picking one up and modding it.
My last console was a PS3, after that I went exclusively PC since every newer console seemed far too expensive for the very few exclusives that interested me, and they began to charge a monthly fee to play games online. The only console I didn’t have from that generation was the Wii, as I’d always written it off as a gimmick. But after taking a closer look at its library, it’s surprisingly packed with good titles, and the motion controls are a pretty unique way to interact with games.
I picked one up a few months ago off ebay, and even for a lot that included a Wii balance board, it was less than $80. Modding it was extremely easy, and after it was done, I was amazed to find that it has access to a surprisingly polished online homebrew store full of emulators and cool little homebrew games that download and install with a single click.
That means the console has access to:
- The entire Wii library (Including unique modern light-gun style games, like Deadspace: Extraction, plus Wii fit with the balance board, which is actually really fun)
- The entire gamecube library with the Nintendont emulator (best paired with either a gamecube controller or the Wii Classic controller)
- Pretty much every retro console such as SNES, Genesis, GB, GBC, GBA, etc with emulators
- The highlights of the N64 and NeoGeo catalog thanks to being ported to the Virtual Console (the Wii shop is dead, so you’ll need to sail to get those).
- You can even still play online in Mario Kart thanks to modders, and it’s still active!
All for less than $100. It’s an absolute gem of a console, especially when paired with sailing the high seas (which is really easy since the Wii has an SD card slot, so you can slam it full of stuff), and has quickly become my favorite of all time. I sold every other console I’ve ever owned, but I suspect I’ll be keeping the Wii for the foreseeable future due to its versatility and ease of use (especially for retro games, no messing around with RetroArch’s horrible interface!)
There’s literally enough in my PC backlog for the rest of my life probably, don’t need another new console, game or graphics card, ever.
I have literally never in my life bought the next generation console because I had run out of games that I was planning to play on the current generation, and my first console was a NES. Every upgrade has been a matter of convenience because someone was getting rid of their old (new to me) console, or because I was interested enough to give the new one a try at a reasonable price point. Never “Oh my god, I’ve got to have that new console, I don’t give a fuck what it costs!”
I’m not sure how concerned game companies are with the upgrade demographic as opposed to the “I’d like to buy a new console” demographic, but if everyone bought new consoles the way I do, the industry would have crashed back in the 90s.
Been about the same here as well, I mean to me graphics have been good enough since like PS2 since I started with a Commodore 64, so everything else has just been icing on the cake. I never really got into online gaming either so that was never a draw. I suppose I see gaming as something like a momentary escape, so I prefer games with colorful, fantastic graphics and not necessarily photo realistic renders, so the constant push for more polygons has largely been not so important for me.
I pray for immaculate memtests on us all for all eternity.
Seriously, anything after 2015 has perfect graphics, I don’t need slightly more realistic hair or whatever. Even a lot of 2010 is enjoyable. And this is only about graphics quality. For gameplay, story etc, you know shit actually matters, there already is way more than I can play.
Playing games in the modern era for better graphics is like watching the latest movie because it used a really cool high tech camera.
You should play new games for the artistry and quality of gameplay, story, and other elements, same as ever.
But that doesnt mean new games have no value. You’re just fighting against a straw man to begin with.
You should play new games for the artistry and quality of gameplay, story, and other elements, same as ever.
But they already knew how to make games with artistry, quality gameplay, story and other elements in decades past. Which is why that person’s point was that you don’t need access to the very latest games for enjoyment and now that graphics have peaked, there’s no real reason to buy a game that runs like shit on what might not be a top of the line PC.
Same reason could apply to movies and music to say no one “needs” to watch or listen to newer stuff.
Then you become the old man telling kids to get off the lawn. It’s anyone’s right to be like this.
Huh?
You don’t need brand new hardware for new movies. A movie will provide you with 1.5-3 hours of enjoyment at a time and it’ll get old quickly when you rewatch the same ones over and over again. There’s literally no reason not to watch new ones as they come out.
If it cost me 2 grand (price of a passable gaming rig in 2026) every 5 years to be able to watch the newest movies, damn right I’d be way more into discovering old movies.
Okay, I guess it’s PC then.
$999 “is not impossible”
At that price, just buy or build a fucking computer already.
Well, here I was thinking that Steam Machine had priced itself out of the market, but it sounds like it’s gonna end up having parity with PS6 anyhow
Next-gen consoles are rumored to be around a 5080 in terms of performance. With 32GB of unified ram, $1000 would be a good deal for that level of performance. If Microsoft added the ability to run windows on it, that would be a pretty compelling package.
Hopefully things will get better, but with ram prices where they are the steam machine would probably need to be $900 if it launched today without being subsidized by valve and is around the performance of a base PS5.
I hate to say it but consoles may be the better deal next-gen.
You speak with an awful lot of authority for someone who is just making stuff up.
I thought nobody knows the specs for it yet?
These are the rumored specs according to moore’s law is dead. Of course things could change or he could have gotten misinformation.
MLID has <50% accuracy IIRC, so everything to be taken with a spoonful of salt. Not saying it’s definitely wrong, of course. He’s gotten things right sometimes too.
I seriously wonder if they’d be better off just deferring the next console generation until 2028.
There was 9 years between the release of the 360 and the Xbox One. Might was well do the same thing this generation.
Pc parts aren’t cheap either…
But it is possible to pick up a cheap used office PC off ebay and stick a used GPU in it, which would let someone play almost any game on the market for much less than a console.
However your options are much better when you’re building a PC with a $1000 budget.
I don‘t think people who can‘t cough up 1000 bucks for a console will cough them up for a PC. They just don‘t have that kinda money to spend on videogames. It‘ll lead to people stickin with what they have and those who don‘t have anything (especially kids) will play games on their phones or doomscroll all day. So the whole next gen might be crossgen and/or even tank the industry in general. That‘s my prediction.
I don‘t think people who can‘t cough up 1000 bucks for a console will cough them up for a PC. They just don‘t have that kinda money to spend on videogames.
The good thing about a PC is that it can be used for more things than video games. A lot more, in fact. I constantly use my PC for work because I’m too cheap to buy a proper work laptop yet (before anyone gets up in arms, I’m self employed, there’s no boss to ask for things). I use the same PC to pirate media because fuck paying 5 different subscriptions and still not seeing the movies you want to see. And I also use it to browse the Internet on a screen of actual size.
I’m self employed
So you’re saying you are failing to provide your most crucial employee with appropriate work equipment? /j
Well the lazy bastard has been working like 40 hours a month for the last half a year saying something about season affective disorder and ADHD!
Oof.
1000 for a PC? Are you mad? With the prices going up it would be miracle to pay 1000, if you find ram or cheap HDD/SSD.
Hmm let’s see…
- Mobo - some B650 - 100 EUR
- CPU - Ryzen 8700G - 250 EUR
- RAM - 16G - 200 EUR
- PSU + Case + Mouse + Keyboard - 150 EUR
- SSD 1 Tb 150 EUR
Total 850 EUR and you are left with 150-200 for games or hdd or rainbow cables if you are into that stuff.
Needless to say SSD and RAM prices suck.
Note: $1000 + 20% VAT is roughly 1050 EUR
200 euro for 16G? Youre sure there chief? :p
They start at 220 and quickly go towards 270 hehe
(God i hate the market atm)DDR4?
With an amd 8000 series? Ye no, thats am5. Ddr5
Aren’t you forgetting a GPU there?
We must be reaching a plateau in terms of generational leaps in between consoles. Though I love the PS5 it’s not a huge jump from PS4, just slightly better graphics and better frame rates. As things stand, I can’t see a need to upgrade for years. PS5 it’s only 6 years old. It’s easily got another 6, maybe 10 years in it.
I’ve been complaining that the consoles and graphical fidelity have been seeing diminishing returns since the PS3 / Xbox 360. At this point, we’re just pushing way more power for minimal improvements. It’s stupid.
Didnt xbox say they are quitting the hardware side of things?
No, they said it would run PC games.
Whether that means Steam remains to be seen.
PS5 was too much day one at £400 and it’s only gone up since. What happened to the days of sub-£200 consoles later in their lifespan?
AI datacenters and greed.
I think the problem might sort itself out once the data centers are actually built. The impact from maintaining a data center is probably less than from actually building one.
No it’s gonna suck. Those data centers will consume fresh water and power driving up costs of both over the long term.
The chips will also become obsolete or will degrade over time. After 7 years they will require replacement. Same is true with memory and ram.
It’s never going to end.
Increased demand translates to increased memory and ram production capacity?
In a world where inputs to the process of chip creation can scale you would be correct.
However it takes at least a decade to bring a power plant online restrict power generation. Access to natural gas and oil can be distrupted further restricting access to power. There is a finite supply of water in most areas that can not be expanded . Disruption to trade routes due to war and tariffs make expanding the inputs to production difficult. Reduces access to capital due to a lack of faith in the US government and rising interest rates will restrict that access.
The world of plenty we lived in was dying even before Covid killed it off. We live in a world of scarcity and disrupted supply and resources now.
While pre builds will still be 1200 - consoles are looking to either kill themselves or hand everything over to Nazitendo with their ban policies.
I’m hoping Nintendo is soon after. Nintendo is without question the worst among the 3 hardware developers. Behind their child friendly IP’s they’re the most cut throat company. They’re the epitome of you’ll own nothing and like it
I am still kinda surprised Xbox is still doing hardware at all
