The future of console games looks bleak

And now the Switch 2 is very expensive. Or at least, recently. Although prices are going up in Japan starting May 25th, most of the rest of the world has a refresher, with the change taking place in the US, Canada, and Europe on September 1st. It is a few months before you can get the connector at the original price. But the boom is also starting at a particularly bad time, as the holiday months are still the biggest sales period for game consoles, including Nintendo.

So you know things are bad if Nintendo is willing to screw up this success and make Switch 2 more expensive. Increasing revenue is often not the best way to increase sales. Look at Sony: The company sold just 1.5 million PS5s in the last fiscal yearthe biggest drop is 46 percent. I don’t expect that the $50 increase will have such a negative impact on Nintendo; The PS5 is now $150 more than it was at launch, which is a huge difference. But the Switch 2 was already expensive, and at a time when everyone is feeling the financial crisis, consumers especially, $ 50 is not small. If nothing else, the early rise of the Switch 2 could be delayed until the second year. Nintendo may slow down some if it has a big holiday game – I have to think we’ll see a full Nintendo Direct sometime before September – but there will be some side effects to the ride.

More importantly, these stories raise questions about the future. If the low-end Switch 2 costs $500, what can we expect from the next generation of high-end gaming hardware? Microsoft is already talking about the next Xbox, Project Helixwhich will have all kinds of new technology to make the game look better. But in today’s view, how much will that cost? Valve is launching its Steam console as a console this year, and we still don’t know how much it will cost. That’s a clear sign that they won’t be cheap. There’s a good chance Nintendo will get out of this, though the company is predicting a 16.9% drop in sales. in the next year. But it’s hard to see a super-expensive new Xbox or a super-expensive living room PC reaching an audience beyond devoted fans. In this environment, there is no room for console games to grow.

Announcing the changes today, Nintendo said it is raising prices “based on changes in the market” and that the new conditions are “expected to continue in the long to long term.” Translated from company talk, Nintendo is saying what we all know: This problem isn’t going away anytime soon. The question is how much console space will be left if and in the end.