Game Console Market Craters: Xbox and PS5 Sales Plummet Over 25% (msn.com) 71
"Video game console sales in the U.S. have cratered," reports Tom's Hardware, with sales through August far below where they'd been in 2025:
Mat Piscatella, the video game industry advisor at research firm Circana, shared the numbers on his Bluesky account — PlayStation 5 sales have dropped by 25%, putting it at its lowest point since 2013, when gamers held off buying PlayStation consoles in anticipation of the arrival of the PS4, while Xbox's retail figures have cratered by 33% YTD, putting its sales numbers at an all-time low since its launch almost 25 years ago.
Piscatella said price sensitivity is becoming a real problem among gamers, especially as the chip shortage has pushed console manufacturers to raise prices. Microsoft has raised the price of the Xbox three times in the past two years, with the 512GB versions jumping by $100 and 1TB models becoming $150 more expensive. Worse, the company has killed off the 2TB model. This brought the Xbox Series S to $499.99 (512GB) and $599.99 (1TB), while the Xbox Series X now costs $749.99 for the Digital Edition, and the disc version costs $50 more at $799.99.
PlayStation fans haven't escaped these price hikes, as Sony raised prices for that console by $100 to $150. The base Digital Edition PS5 now costs $599.99, while the version with an optical drive is priced at $649.99. If you want the PS5 Pro, you'll have to shell out $899.99, while those who want to stream games from their console via the PlayStation Portal must now pay $249.99 — $50 higher than its $199.99 launch price. Even used consoles didn't escape inflation, with Sony bumping the price of refurbished PS5 Slim consoles by $100, bringing them to $399.
"Still, Piscatella says the U.S. hardware market has never been more precarious since the early 1980s."
Piscatella said price sensitivity is becoming a real problem among gamers, especially as the chip shortage has pushed console manufacturers to raise prices. Microsoft has raised the price of the Xbox three times in the past two years, with the 512GB versions jumping by $100 and 1TB models becoming $150 more expensive. Worse, the company has killed off the 2TB model. This brought the Xbox Series S to $499.99 (512GB) and $599.99 (1TB), while the Xbox Series X now costs $749.99 for the Digital Edition, and the disc version costs $50 more at $799.99.
PlayStation fans haven't escaped these price hikes, as Sony raised prices for that console by $100 to $150. The base Digital Edition PS5 now costs $599.99, while the version with an optical drive is priced at $649.99. If you want the PS5 Pro, you'll have to shell out $899.99, while those who want to stream games from their console via the PlayStation Portal must now pay $249.99 — $50 higher than its $199.99 launch price. Even used consoles didn't escape inflation, with Sony bumping the price of refurbished PS5 Slim consoles by $100, bringing them to $399.
"Still, Piscatella says the U.S. hardware market has never been more precarious since the early 1980s."
Fucking AI... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Fucking AI... (Score:2)
Game consoles are a dead end anyway.
The game consoles started in an era before the PC, but when the PC became affordable they became dinosaurs and milk cows for people tgat believed in the ads.
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Gaming Computers are a dead end. Even before OpenAI became a household word they were generally far over $1500. And outside of being able to play games on them, they weren't really any better than a cheap mini PC.
There's only so many people willing to spend huge amounts on a game machine.
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Gaming Computers are a dead end.
They are. The future of gaming are cell phones and tablets. That's what kids learn to game on these days, and when they grow up, that's where they're going to game.
There's a reason the Nintendo Switch is essentially a weird tablet. PC gaming has been dead for a while and console gaming pretty much died thanks to shortages at the start of the pandemic. There's a good chance GTA6 will be the last major console game.
But everyone has a phone. Kids see their parents using them, and they tend to be the first devi
Re: Fucking AI... (Score:2)
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The PC as a gaming platform died when GPUs broke $1000 for an entry-level GPU. And that's just the baseline. If you want a gaming-capable PC you're looking at spending $4000 right now. That's just not happening. This article covers the death of consoles.
You ever talked with children? Even teenagers? There are three big games right now: Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft. And that's it. All those run on phones. That's where the kids play. They don't understand how to use a controller and don't really understand
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And that's it. All those run on phones. That's where the kids play. They don't understand how to use a controller and don't really understand how to use a laptop, let alone a desktop computer
The fuck kind of crazy shit is this?
My 15yo will play almost any game on any platform at any time. Yep, she plays on her phone and her tablet but she also plays on her xbox and switch. She has a school issued laptop for her classwork and uses desktops in classes that have/require them.
My 8yo plays on her tablet and my wife's phone, but has no problem using a Switch controller (be it a joycon, pro controller, or the two joycons on the charging base together). She plays puzzle games with my wife, minecraft
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Re: Fucking AI... (Score:2)
This is nonsense. If you have a decent GPU and just a whatever CPU then you can expect to be CPU limited. Just having current PCIE is not enough.
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Alright, "any system except whatever 40 cent processor you're thinking of." Don't expect anything from an AMD Sempron, okay? I'll concede that my language was too broad.
Obviously if the difference is too extreme, then you're wasting money, but if it's only a little limited and can run all your games I promise you won't die from it.
More fallout of the LLM insanity (Score:4, Interesting)
We are all paying for that idiotic scam, whether we want to or not. And we will continue to pay for a long time, while the debris of the inevitable crash is being picked up.
Re:More fallout of the LLM insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony is that in the next few years most firms are going to find out that they can run their own subject specific AI models on a beafed up rack server and so won't need the expensive AI cloud infrastructure and the AI companies whole financial bet-the-farm will collapse in a debt laden heap possibly taking a large part of the economy with it.
Re:More fallout of the LLM insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. And they will also find out that running your own specialized models with your own safeguards (!) and result verification outside of the LLM is the only good way to get result quality that actually can (maybe) meet reasonable engineering and other standards. General LLMs are a cool stunt, but a really bad idea if you do real work.
They priced themselves out of the market. (Score:2, Insightful)
Failing to understand the market is the thing that cost them the most.
We're in a K-shaped economy right now, the stocks are at all time highs, and the purchasing power is at our lowest at the moment, this can't go on for much longer.
Raising prices in a market like that will not hold up, and making it unobtainium for most people to even get graphics card, hardware, memory and storage did not help much either.
It will be the most costly lesson in gaming history, but when you're used to juicy profits it's hard
Are you not into PR? (Score:2, Insightful)
We're in a K-shaped economy right now, the stocks are at all time highs, and the purchasing power is at our lowest at the moment, this can't go on for much longer.
"Here at Sony, we know what it's like when times are tough, many of our executives have had to put off buying a fifth home due to financial hardship. However, we also believe in self-sufficiency, which is why we need you to go out there, sell your blood, your children, or your neighbors' car and keep buying vapid games that will never own and will stop working in a couple years. Remember, selling your children will give you more time to enjoy your hallow online experience in fighting losing battles against
Re: Are you not into PR? (Score:1)
However, we also believe in self-sufficiency, which is why we need you to go out there, sell your blood, your children, or your neighbors' car and keep buying vapid games that will never own and will stop working in a couple years.
Honestly if you didn't vote against this mess, then that is my answer too, bootstraps, guess you're looking for PS4s at garage sales now. Start thinking DDR4 ram for your next "upgrade". IDK, go get one of those nice recently deported immigrant jobs.
IDK how you honestly expect a company to operate in this economy and serve both ends of that K with luxury goods like gaming systems. It's shrinkflation or poor people editions. Maybe they can cut costs by removing the heat sinks but you can double it as a rice
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Honestly if you didn't vote against this mess
You really think your vote matters? It doesn't.
You really think the average person should have a say in the economy? The average person is an idiot.
You really think the bad guys are on the other side? Every side is filled with sociopaths seeking more power. (yes, even "my side" for whatever that means).
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Or maybe take aim at what's making the global economy so fucked up in the first place?
Humanity's egocentric tendencies and selfishness? No?
Humanity's indifference toward the suffering of others?
A society that continues to believe the fairy tale that working harder means you earn more money?
Unfettered greed and legalized corruption named "lobbying"?
Unethical corporations like Sony who get their way using said lobbying?
Both major parties for refusing to shift toward ranked choice voting?
US media corporations for amplifying Donald Trump in the 2016 election because ratings?
The corporate shills
Re: They priced themselves out of the market. (Score:4, Insightful)
Failing to understand the market is the thing that cost them the most.
Kid, understanding the current economic conditions and being able to do fuckall about it are two entirely different things. Sony knows more about the global economic situation than you ever will because they sell a wide variety of things at every price point, globally. They fucking know dude, sales data from companies like Sony are how you objectively measure exactly how fucked up everything is.
You can't look at this economy, go gee, people are increasingly less able to afford nice things, then magic wand your nice things cheaper. If that were possible you wouldn't HAVE this problem. I mean what are you actually suggesting, shrinkflation the fuck out of consumer electronics? Bust out the old PS4 blueprints and slap PS6 on it so you can afford one? The other side of that K is still spending, OBVIOUSLY. What idiot wouldn't take their money?
I mean something along those lines very well may happen in the long run I just can't believe people are so flippantly asking for it. Like if you can't afford the cost of Oreos, I get begging for thinner cookies, it's still good, probably even better for us that way. What the fuck you think is going to happen to consumer electronics. Like it's Sony or Microsoft's fault for failing to address the increasing socioeconomic class divide by not launching "PS4 New" alongside PS6. Maybe start getting a little more serious about what's causing this fucking economy to be so fucked instead of begging to be served by it, FFS.
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You could point to lots of things and say they are the problem.
I'm going to go ahead and say one of the problems is lack of vertical integration. Everyone seems to want to let other corporations effectively be in charge of their business. Sony's big enough to have their own fabs, or at least take a major stake, but hasn't. And inb4 anyone says that isn't sensible, Sony themselves disagree and are starting to change this [tsmc.com], so perhaps they have figured this out themselves. It's not just the simple direct immed
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Sony started outsourcing their manufacture to China years ago. They're on the path of becoming just another marketing brand that gets slapped onto the same $200 kit, only with a 3x markup.
Sony and TCL Sign Definitive Agreements for Strategic Partnership in the Home Entertainment Field [sony.co.jp]
March 31, 2026
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I see them ditching their consumer line, since it's too hard to differentiate there now, and focusing on pro equipment. Their camera line is very successful.
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Sony fabbed Cell for the PS3 and it wrecked them financially. It was expensive, and Cell never lived up to the hype. For PS4 onwards they chose AMD hardware. The rest is history.
Under the present circumstances, they would have needed to have the foresight over 5+ years ago to see that AI would consume the global supply of RAM and storage and produced their own fabs for RAM and NAND to avoid this crisis. And even then they would be better off selling those products to the AI market than in aging consumer
Re: They priced themselves out of the market. (Score:1)
Cell was fabricated by IBM, so... No.
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Sony spent billions on a fab in Japan for Cell:
https://www.edn.com/sony-toshi... [edn.com]
They transferred the fab to Toshiba in 2008.
Re: They priced themselves out of the market. (Score:2)
They transferred a different fab. Your citation also doesn't show they actually built the fab in question. Got one that does?
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I'm going to go ahead and say one of the problems is lack of vertical integration.
Please forgive me, I don't want to make this about politics per se and I don't want this comment to come off as attacking or give off an "and yet you participate in society" vibe, but...
I was under the impression that you were nominally on what we would call "the left" and that "vertical integration" was one of the seven deadly sins, economically speaking. Given a large amount opposition to that in the western world over the last thirty years or so, how was anyone supposed to plan for the situation we're i
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I was under the impression that you were nominally on what we would call "the left" and that "vertical integration" was one of the seven deadly sins, economically speaking.
I'm not talking about what would be best for society, I'm talking about what would be best for Sony.
(On another note, from an economic rather than political point of view, if you look at how AMD and Intel have functioned over the last 10-20 years, AMD's choice to divest their fabs seems to have been a very good decision on their part
It does seem that way, since they probably would have expired otherwise, since they weren't able to execute. And neither can Intel. But since TSMC was able to advance process technology, we know it was possible, and therefore it would have been even better for AMD if they had been able to do that instead of divesting.
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It is at this point that I will make this about politics and purposefully pursue the "yet you participate in society" vibe.
I'm not talking about what would be best for society, I'm talking about what would be best for Sony.
How can you possibly advocate against $POLICY and then say "If $COMPANY had done what I advocate against, things would be better for all of us" without that meaningfully affecting your view of $POLICY?
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How can you possibly advocate against $POLICY and then say "If $COMPANY had done what I advocate against, things would be better for all of us"
Who said that? You need to work on your reading comprehension skills, bub.
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Maybe that behavior is finally about to fall over because people can simply no longer afford more personal debt.
At least in the summary it is not mentioned that the companies had fewer consoles to sell, only that consumers were buying less of them.
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Not sure how you can put "AI companies bought all the fucking supply of everything for three entire calendar years" on "gaming companies." I saw some guy on reddit the other day complaining about Microsoft reducing the amount of storage for 365 family subs and urging everyone to sign some petition to reverse this as if a. there was any chance of a reversal or b. that enterprise storage costs increasing by a factor of four over the last calendar year might make this both a reasonable move on their part and
Maybe they should consider making some games again (Score:5, Insightful)
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You haven't looked very hard then. Crimson Desert released this year for example is a worthy Skyrim substitute.
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There ain't shit worth playing on the current gen consoles. Even before the memory armageddon thanks to LLM bullshit, I've been struggling to find shit to actually play on my PS5.
There never really was.
With the possible exception of the first one (and "possible" is doing a lot of heavy lifting) Xbox and Playstation consoles were just trying to be gaming PCs but less useful, less powerful and ultimately more expensive. Even the original Xbox was easily modded into a media centre PC (XBMC was originally XBox Media Centre and ran on the original XBox) and the PS3 was originally able to run Linux... well until the corporate overlords decided they didn't want you to.
Expensive, yes,
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Kodi was originally XBMP (... player) before it was XBMC :)
Even an old PC can run far more games than any console can. It may not run the latest AAA game, but there's plenty of older ones which are just as AAA
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The PS5 has no games!
Year 6 of 7 in the Playstation hardware life cycle (Score:2)
Of course sales will be slow, they usually are... people are not as willing to buy a console that will soon be out of date. But, on top of that, Playstation (and other console makers) usually drop prices late in the life cycle for this very reason. Because of the AI house of cards, Playstation instead raised prices. To be honest, it's kind of surprising it's merely 25%.
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Correct, the dip in sales was to be expected anyway. Most console hardware is getting pretty old by now in terms of generational power.
Re: Idiot in the WH, economy down 25% (Score:2)
Early 80s is a poor comparison (Score:1)
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Price-wise it's not significantly different, since $200 in 1984 is about $650 in today's dollars so it's about the same price as today's consoles.
However, when the Commodore 64 was released in 1982, it was $595, which is roughly $2000 today.
The main difference is that a Commodore 64 is a general purpose computer in addition to being a "gaming console" so you got more for your money in that regard than you get with a simple console today.
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When you want to compare two things you need to limit the factors that are different. There is one huge difference between the early 80s and now. Back then you could get a dirt cheap computer for gaming. For example a Commodore 64 for $200. If that's all you bought, it was effectively a console with a slot for a game on a cartridge. That's just way too different an environment from today.
Not quite that simple. You neglect two little things in your comparison.
1) On its own, C64 main unit was not quite that self-contained. Yes, you had the cartridge slot but very limited use for it. Almost all C64 games were released on cassette and/or disk, not as cartridges. Sure, you could buy the cassette drive for $50 extra. But - practically every C64 user had the 1541. If you wanted to write your own programs, the cassette drive was sheer hell. And for games? I shudder to think how U5 would have played
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When you want to compare two things you need to limit the factors that are different. There is one huge difference between the early 80s and now. Back then you could get a dirt cheap computer for gaming. For example a Commodore 64 for $200. If that's all you bought, it was effectively a console with a slot for a game on a cartridge. That's just way too different an environment from today.
Not quite that simple. You neglect two little things in your comparison.
1) On its own, C64 main unit was not quite that self-contained. Yes, you had the cartridge slot but very limited use for it. Almost all C64 games were released on cassette and/or disk, not as cartridges.
The point that I was trying to make is that depending on peripherals, the C-64 could fit into both the computer and console segments we envision today. One box to rule it all, so to speak.
It started with PS5 (Score:2)
It definitely had started with the insane scalper feeding-frenzy the PS5 launch was subjected (and engineered) to, people just sort of began to move on from totally overpriced consoles. And then the triple and self-proclaimed quad-A studios turned out slop and failure after failure, so what would you need a new console for anyway? To be insulted and talked down to by products you bought that barely work and hardly delivers any value?
Steam is taking its share too (Score:2)
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Also, when your Steam Machine is too long in the tooth to be credible for new AAA games, you can still use it to play other kinds of games, it will keep getting updates through the community even when Valve is done supporting it, you can blow away the OS on it and load something else without anyone trying to stop you, etc etc. You can also play far more games on it than you can play on any given console. It's just a far superior value unless you absolutely have to play some console exclusive.
Gaming has been dead to me for a while... (Score:2)
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I think the problem is that gone are the days that a hit game could be created by 1 or 2 guys in a few months. A large game nowadays will take up to a decade to create and cost into 9 figures so they have to recoup costs any way they can or go bust. If you want old style games that are all in one then support small indie companies though the fun of a retro gameplay experience can start to wane pretty quick.
What do you actually get from the newest consoles? (Score:2)
To me as one random consumer I fail to see the drive to upgrade from PS4 to PS5, or from the previous XBox to the newest. The games don't look that different. For that matter, it doesn't seem that the two consoles are really offering much difference from each other either. Both consoles are primarily hawking the newest Quake look-alike, or the latest p
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Most games released after about 2022 won't run well or at all on PS4/Xbox1. If you want anything even semi-recent you need the current hardware. Of course it's reaching EoL soon so maybe wait for the new stuff?
In any case, that's what you get. You might not respect the improvement in hardware or the available software, but developers definitely were not targeting PS4/Xbox1 after 2019. Obviously lots of consumers that aren't you understand why they want PS5 games because they were selling pretty well bef
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It's just a hugely diminishing return at this point from my perspective. 2nd generation consoles ->
A console is a PC (Score:2)
Once upon a time, a game console was a special piece of relatively inexpensive purpose-built hardware. Relative to the cost, they had impressive graphics capabilities linked to their design being specifically for gaming, prioritizing single-process performance and graphics memory bandwidth for results which PCs struggled to match.
Today, home PCs have massive bandwidth, and a game console is just a cost reduced PC with a crippled OS and unified memory. So why would you want one over a real PC with a non-crip
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Game consoles are a step above laptops and a step below desktops.
The way I can play games without endlessly tweaking options makes the game consoles win for me.
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The way I can play games without endlessly tweaking options makes the game consoles win for me.
I rarely have to adjust any options for a game to play correctly any more. Usually the internal benchmark does an acceptable job of choosing settings. Of late even pretty rinky-dink games have even been correctly figuring out that I want vsync (I have a 60 fps display, of course I do) which is nice, but they also seem to correctly pick the performance settings. I imagine that this is something that Unity and UE have finally figured out for them.
AI will ruin console exclusives. (Score:2)
However, the real pitfall will be AI and its ability to decompile older games. In recent weeks, I've seen more and more stories of people figuring out how to decompile older, console exclusives and port them to the PC (and other consoles). I also saw a headline that modders have gotten a PS5 to run PS2 games from a disc, r
Oh how sad (Score:2)
Heaven forbid that losers cannot access cheap mindless entertainment ad infinitum
Nintendo Switch? (Score:2)
There's not a single mention.
Then there's black friday, cyber monday (Score:1)