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[The Fartist]

In today's money? no, In tomorrow's (2043) money? yes

 

[DonJimbo]

Fucking no

 

[Jim Ryan other Clone]

I don't understand why we need so expensive consoles, there people today that have bought 1500$ cards and they play Forspoken (a relatively ugly game) no matter the power of your GPU if the game is ugly it won't become more beautiful if buy better GPU.
What is that game that underperforms and needs so powerful and expensive consoles to look better?

Two of the most beautiful games i played the last couple years are TLOU2 and GoT and they are available at ps4. The difference from PS4 and PS5 at both games is minimal.
It does not matter if you have a console or a PC that costs 5000$ when you want to play Wo Long, the game looks shit and more power will not fix it.

So the problem is not the power of your device but how skillful are the creators of a game and as in every part of our life and professions there are skillful individual, unskilled and downright worthless but all have to work. So the devs have to improve and not our hardware because there are very beautiful games out there and very ugly that both are on the same machine, why the one dev team can do it and the other can not?

 

[Tams]

Yes, but then again it's also called a PC.

 

[Long Far Gone]

We already have £800-£900 consoles, they're called "Personal Computers". Why do you think Microsoft went out of their way to introduce the cheaper Series S? Because price matters, if Sony introduced a £900 console there would be parties breaking out at Xbox Headquarters; look at the reaction to the £530 PSVR2, people went crazy at the price. Even a £600 console would be suicide.

 

[Zuzu]

I don't understand why we need so expensive consoles, there people today that have bought 1500$ cards and they play Forspoken (a relatively ugly game) no matter the power of your GPU if the game is ugly it won't become more beautiful if buy better GPU.
What is that game that underperforms and needs so powerful and expensive consoles to look better?

Two of the most beautiful games i played the last couple years are TLOU2 and GoT and they are available at ps4. The difference from PS4 and PS5 at both games is minimal.
It does not matter if you have a console or a PC that costs 5000$ when you want to play Wo Long, the game looks shit and more power will not fix it.

So the problem is not the power of your device but how skillful are the creators of a game and as in every part of our life and professions there are skillful individual, unskilled and downright worthless but all have to work. So the devs have to improve and not our hardware because there are very beautiful games out there and very ugly that both are on the same machine, why the one dev team can do it and the other can not?

We need more expensive consoles because some people currently want or will want in the future a machine in a console form-factor that can produce better visuals and performance at a technical level (e.g. increased rasterisation and ray-tracing performance) than what the current base consoles can and will produce without having to wait 7 or 8 years.

Your statement that a better GPU doesn’t improve visuals is only partly true. Sure, if a development team is poorly skilled and the art style of a game is bad then more graphical power won’t improve those aspects of the game’s visual presentation very much. But good visuals are a product of both the game’s art style and its technical presentation and performance. A game with a good art style will be further enhanced if the technical aspects of its visuals and performance are also enhanced, which is what more gpu horsepower and capabilities do.

 

[cireza]

even the oldest ones

It depends on the console.

Older cartridge based consoles are very reliable and you can repair them yourself most of the time.

Disc based consoles have a lot more issues, and some consoles have other issues on top such as 360 or PS3. PS1 and 2 aren't very reliable, Dreamcast has issues as well, Sega-cd also has its issues. Wii U was discussed recently in another topic etc...

The main concern is that when these consoles fail, repairing them is much more difficult. When failure comes from the main board, you cannot easily fix it unless you have advanced knowledge and tools.

 

[Celcius]

Nah. Pro edition maybe. But not the main base console.

Lol, no. Base consoles should be at max $400-500.

The OP specifically says enhanced (Pro) consoles for these prices lol

 

[Rhazkul]

Graphics card are going for over a thousand dollars, lower range are $750.

Mobile phones are $1000

But the idea of a console being $7-800 and everyone loses their mind.

You are comparing high-end phone prices/GPU prices with low-tier consoles that often can't even run 60fps/4k. Not a fair comparison. I personally never pay more than 200 bucks for a phone, but that's just me i guess.

 

[nikos]

I paid over double that for my GPU but I'm not sure I'd pay that much for a console. The performance gap to PC would have to close significantly and there would have to be exclusive games that are worth it.

 

[Laieon]

$800-900 consoles is actually my fetish.

 

[Ev1L AuRoN]

We reach pretty much the diminishing returns territory, maybe we players that participate in forums and love tech will notice the difference, but for the majority it will be hard press to distinguish the two unless they put them side by side.

They will piss off most of your base, launching a halo product that maybe 10% of your user base will buy.

It used to be the case that you bought a console and were content that you had the top tier console experience for a generation.

 

[M1987]

I dont understand this argument at all

You can buy a 900 dollars PC at that price, sure. But it would probably be way inferior than the console in terms of hardware.

Just like it would take you way more than $499 to build a PC equivalent to a PS5 today, it would take you way more than $900 to build an equivalent PC to this console.

I got everything new apart from the 6800 GPU for £750,and it beats both consoles easily

 

[DragonNCM]

For a 1000$ I will get good portable PC better then console spec & use that instead.
I will do everythin I want with that PC & still play cheeper games.

 

[TheRedRiders]

You are comparing high-end phone prices/GPU prices with low-tier consoles that often can't even run 60fps/4k. Not a fair comparison. I personally never pay more than 200 bucks for a phone, but that's just me i guess.

"High end phones", Apple's current iPhone retails here in the U.K for £1099, that's roughly more than double its production cost, its feature set is modest (to say the least) compared to previous year model yet people are more than happy to buy the phone knowing full well they'll upgrade every 2-3 years. Pay monthly options are common sure, but the same can be said for consoles now as well.

As for "high end GPU", it'll cost you roughly £600-1000 to build a PC which matches the specs of the PS5. Low-end GPU's can't run 4K 60 either, especially with RT on.

An £800 console doesn't sound bad when you consider those factors. I don't think the PS5 Pro will be anywhere near that price, I don't think it'll be anything more than £/$ 699. It'll offer roughly double the performance of the PS5 so it seems like a fair deal to me. Sure it's not for everyone, but it will definitely appeal to me and many other enthusiast console gamers.

 

[Madserb2023]

Not for the base model. We could see a future where you may have three models at launch. $400 for the budget version, $600 for the standard and perhaps $800 for the high end version. I would like this for the Switch 2. They can have two models at launch. An OLED version might be too expensive as the standard version but I don't want to go back to an LCD even if it has more power. Could offer a more expensive OLED version with a bigger screen day 1. Could be $500.

 

[Adam_802]

Remember when people said the One X and ps4 pro would cost like $800-$1000? lol

 

[Scotracer]

Given the rate of inflation (excluding the massive last 18 months), $500-600 just means that gamers are restricting what they can have.

$700 today was $550 in 2013 (PS4 launch).

 

[Jimmyisback]

hell no.

 

[STARSBarry]

you see all those gamers happy with the RTX 4000 series?

Steam Hardware & Software Survey

yeah... maybe not, you need to be at a good price point to sell.

 

[Pagusas]

Yes, easily.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Seven hundred and ninety nine US dollars!!!

 

[BlackTron]

Way too much money for a "walled garden" box. Just make a PC already.

 

[Rhazkul]

enthusiast console gamers.

You might be an exception, but that's an oxymoron. No offense. Console gaming is anything but enthusiast. It's akin to unsophisticated fast food. And that's why such high prices for a console will never work. The average consumer wants cheap entry costs, an easy to boot gaming console without much hassle, plug and play right out of the box.

"Modding? Customizing Controls? Upgrades? Graphic settings? Patching? What's that?" asked the average console gamer.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Not saying this is breaking the bank, but in terms of console vs pc costing dont forget online fees.

An Xbox gamer paying for 20 years since Xbox OG and PS gamers 10 years since PS4 have been paying about $50/yr.

Dedicated Xbox gamers have paid $1000 and PS gamers $500 just to play online.

A console with a 7 year life span is $350 of fees. So for console gamers the price isn’t as rock bottom as they seem when you add this in (assuming you do MP gaming).

 

[Kamina]

some here are certainly ready, and that is fine, but globally it wouldn’t sell that well in comparison to PS5.

 

[Investor9872]

If the specs are worth it, absolutely yes!

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Not sure if anyones paying attention to how poor rich nations are becoming lol

 

[dcx4610]

You absolutely don't need anywhere close to $4,000 in components, EVEN IF you're starting with an MSRP 4090. A 'killer rig' today is totally overkill for 99% of what is available to play but if you want to go there...picked up an open box 13700k at Microcenter for $300 which is more than enough CPU if you're using the 4090 at its intended resolution--4K. Using my existing Trident Royal 3200mhz DDR 4 RAM, I picked up a open box MSI Z690 MPG Edge WiFi for $200 which works with DDR4 (yes, yes, I know, I should've futured proofed now that better RAM is coming down in price but the Mobos are still expensive and the returns don't justify the high price). I have a noctua tower cooler that cost around $80 but needed a new $10 mounting kit to fit the new socket of the 13700k. Lian Li Mesh 2 cool is the case but you said you already have one so nix that cost. I have an S tier Seasonic Gold 850W PSU that was only $125ish a few years back. PSUs have generally gone up though (probably due to the same BS that allows all of these suppliers to price gauge--higher end GPUs gonna roll down, or more accurately up, to PSU costs). If you really insist on having the 1000 watt version in Platinum, you're looking at around $300. You can easily get away with an 850 if you don't have a ton of extra drives or a 13900k and resist the urge to OC the bejesus outta everything (hardly necessary--in fact, an undervolt on the 13700k makes it a much more efficient 12900k). 4080 seems to undervolt better from my limited research but both don't need 100% power to run at almost 100% performance.

I'm no math wiz but even with a 4090, you're still almost $1k short of $4k. If you're willing to stop just short of cutting edge GPU, you can come in LESS THAN HALF you're proposed figure. Pick up an 6800xt/6900xt for a song ($500-600) or still remain somewhat responsible and get an attractively priced used 3090ti or a new rtx 4070ti, both of which should be better performance to price than the 4080/90.

On a side note, you're right. Just not to the degree you're hyperbolizing. Corporate greed is a thing. Just ask the chickens.

Well, I certainly don't "need" it. When I build a new rig, I just tend to go all out for it to last a long time. In the past, it was would have been $2000ish. For it to more than double is pretty nuts to me. This isn't even a full build. That price is literally just CPU, memory, motherboard, power supply, GPU (4090), AiO cooler and 2x NVMEs. To be fair, the GPU is half the price of the build.

Motherboards are also absurd now. The cheapest motherboard that has all of the features I want is $600. Things have just gotten crazy.

 

[coffinbirth]

I mean, the NeoGeo was basically this ($650 at release, but would be over 1000 in todays dollars).

It was mythical...

PS3 is a good example of this. $600 in 2006 money is $900 now, adjusting for inflation.

The reality is PS5 and XSX were actually about $700 consoles to Sony and Microsoft at launch, as they lost roughly that much($200) on each console sold.

 

[coffinbirth]

Everyone that isnt accepting the iphone argument.. go see in 08 years how much people spend on phones ... it is a necessity.. what is not is buying the most expensive and changing it every other year .. in isolation yes I agree phones vs consoles is not the same product.. BUT ... when you consider the buying habits of this industry (technology) you can see that people will go above and beyond for the shiny new PREMIUM product

Either way Im NOT advocating for one sku at 900 dollars... Im advocating for one normal and one premium sku right of the gate .. instead of a pro down the line ... and anyone saying that there is not a market for premium products in this industry has to take their heads out of their buts

A modular console would make more sense, IMO.

 

[TheRedRiders]

You might be an exception, but that's an oxymoron. No offense. Console gaming is anything but enthusiast. It's akin to unsophisticated fast food. And that's why such high prices for a console will never work. The average consumer wants cheap entry costs, an easy to boot gaming console without much hassle, plug and play right out of the box.

This is just false, you’re over-generalising the “average consumer”. Your fast-food analogy works both ways as well, the mobile phone industry has pretty much the same “fast-food” model, pumping out new products with new gimmicks every year and people eat it up like crazy.

But let’s get back to the consoles, it’s true average consumers want a pug and play experience with games, however the idea of Pro console doesn’t contradict this. In fact the PS4 Pro did an excellent job in streamlining the graphical settings and options for most gamers. Performance and Fidelity modes, PS5 Pro will likely do something similar.

Let’s also look at the hard data, PS4 Pro sold very well, in fact even Sony were surprised judging by their comments.

"We were confident about the product but have really been taken aback by how well it's done," Ryan said. "Almost one in five PlayStations sold since that launch in November has been a Pro. That's significantly ahead of our expectations. We're feeling pretty good about that."

In fact here’s Sony pretty much debunking your argument.

"Sometimes I think we can be guilty of ascribing too much rationality to gamers," Ryan explained. "People just want the best. Maybe they just want to future proof? I think we see the same thing from Apple customers too — there are people that want the best that you can buy."

https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/06/ps4-pro-represents-nearly-one-in-every-five-ps4s-sold

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

I think $400 is the sweet spot to hit at or under for a mainstream console that can have mass appeal. At or under $500 for a premium device with some mainstream appeal, but ideally you would be able to cut price within a few years once you've burned through the early adopters.

Anything above that I think you get into enthusiast territory with people who enjoy spending lots of money on new technology.

You have to consider who a large swath of who the console player-base are, and it's children / teens who rely on their parents to buy them these consoles/games for Christmas/ birthdays. I think there's definitely a ceiling there, in that regard. Whereas for those of us like me who have a career and are still gaming at 35, maybe we don't care much about the price, but we have to be aware that we're not the majority of the console gaming audience. The only reason I probably game at all is because my Dad asked me before Christmas 1998 if I wanted a PS One or an N64, and I said N64 because I wanted to play Mario. Had that not happened, unlikely I'd have ever been introduced into console gaming and continually buying into each new console generation.

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

Doubtful, as the new gen would be better than it and cheaper, while releasing only a few years later, now if it was a launch console that had the super high performance/specs than maybe, but definitely not a "pro" version of either console

 

[Sethbacca]

You currently cant even do that reliably with a pc graphics card that costs $1,500

You can’t do that with pc because of its need to be compatible with a broad set of components and devs inability to target a single configuration. It would be a wholly different story in a console environment, especially when you figure FSR and everything.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Doubtful, as the new gen would be better than it and cheaper, while releasing only a few years later, now if it was a launch console that had the super high performance/specs than maybe, but definitely not a "pro" version of either console

With each new generation, consoles keep getting more expensive. $199 was the norm in the N64 era and the GameCube era. $399 for base PS4 at launch, and now $499 has become the standard price for new consoles. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next generation in 2027 or whenever it happens launches at $599. Given inflation and the sophistication of these machines, and the parts needed to make them.

 

[Mephisto40]

You can’t do that with pc because of its need to be compatible with a broad set of components and devs inability to target a single configuration. It would be a wholly different story in a console environment, especially when you figure FSR and everything.

Still think people are living in a dream world if they think Sony are somehow going to cram a graphics card that outperforms a GTX 4090 into their console and sell it for a similar price as the current PS5

 

[SmokedMeat]

Graphics card are going for over a thousand dollars, lower range are $750.

Mobile phones are $1000

But the idea of a console being $7-800 and everyone loses their mind.

Lower end GPUs are nowhere near $750. PCs are also the high end market that aren’t targeting the mainstream and kids, like consoles do.

Mobile phones are a necessity, console aren’t. They also are under $1000, and in most cases available for much less money or even free through carriers.

An $800 console makes no sense whatsoever, and would crash the market. The point of consoles is to offer an inexpensive box for the mainstream to play videogames. It doesn’t need to offer the latest tech (that’s what PCs are for).

 

[Sethbacca]

Still think people are living in a dream world if they think Sony are somehow going to cram a graphics card that outperforms a GTX 4090 into their console and sell it for a similar price as the current PS5

I’m not saying that at all. I was just speaking to your point about pc performance vs console performance in context. I doubt we will even get a PS6 with 4090 power so I definitely don’t see it happening anytime soon. Maybe by the time we get ps6 pro or something.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

If Sony released a PS5 pro with a 4090, 64GB of RAM and a 5TB SSD, then I'd happily spend £1000 for it.

I'm not alone either. It would sell out in minutes.

Wouldn't be a 4090 if it's using the AMD platform. and the AMD = to that 4090 would still be over 1 grand talking 2+

Plus with the way the economy is heading I doubt the gov will be handing out more stimmy cheques this time round.

 

[JackMcGunns]

I may be ready along with many enthusiasts, but you did say the World lol.

 

[FullMetalx117]

Yes please, these are long overdue. Should’ve done it as soon as Apple/Samsung proved phones are easily sold for $1K+

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

I would pay even up-to £1k for a higher end console if it was released alongside other skus at the beginning of a new generation.

 

[kevm3]

Absolutely not, especially with how this gen seems to be stuck in cross-gen forever. If you want to dump a ton of money into a system for a few more fps and sparkly effects, PC exists.

 

[Sethbacca]

Absolutely not, especially with how this gen seems to be stuck in cross-gen forever. If you want to dump a ton of money into a system for a few more fps and sparkly effects, PC exists.

Most people who would pay exorbitant amounts of money for a high end game console likely already own a gaming PC. We just don't like to wait years for PC ports of games we want to play.

 

[Danknugz]

it's called a PC

 

[El Muerto]

If you're willing to pay that much for a console just buy a PC. Can't call yourself an enthusiast if you're playing on the same console as a child.

 

[Sethbacca]

If you're willing to pay that much for a console just buy a PC. Can't call yourself an enthusiast if you're playing on the same console as a child.

You do realize that there are millions upon millions of kids playing on PC also. This is one of the most pretentious PCMR shit takes I've ever seen in my 43 years, and that's saying a lot.

There are probably more kids on PC playing Minecraft alone than there are next gen (current gen) consoles in circulation.

 

[Bernardougf]

This "buy a pc" is such a brain dead stupid non-argument.... try better

 

[Allandor]

Well, don't know.
The e.g. PS4 pro was not really that successful. It was more a marketing thing but sold quite poorly (just like the xb1x) in relation to the little brother/sister.
I guess Sony could do it as there are enough fans that buy whatever they sell. As it must just be compatible it wouldn't make any harm for their current eco system. It just needs to be expensive enough so Sony makes money with it when sold.
For Microsoft, I don't see this. Their fan base is to small for this. Also they have already a weaker and a stronger console. It should not really much more work for the developers, but it might lead to more backlash than there is already because of the series s.