Early this year I wrote about macroeconomic pressures freezing the console and PC gaming markets in place. It’s only gotten more challenging in the months since.
Thanks to tariffs and an AI boom that has increased demand for RAM and other hardware, a PS5 Digital now costs $600 USD, while an Xbox Series X costs $650. Closed ecosystems ensure expenses beyond the hardware aren’t getting any cheaper either. It costs at least $80 to $100 for a year of multiplayer access. Full price AAA games are considering $80 price tags.
Circana research from Mat Piscatella underlines how console gaming is increasingly a hobby for the rich. Back in Q1 2022, 40% of households that purchased new video game hardware made more than $100k, while 31% earned less than $50k. By Q4 2025, 53% made more than $100k annually, while just 19% made less than $50k.
Yet Microsoft and Sony are making a bad situation even worse. Both corporations seem to have no plan for the future beyond catering to an increasingly high income enthusiast base.
We’re in a challenging market for 4K Blu-ray players. In today’s streaming-dominant world, the demand for physical media has dropped sharply, leaving minimal competition for 4K hardware. Most players are old and expensive.
Thankfully, the Sony UBP-X700U stands out as an excellent choice. The player is reliable, quick to operate, relatively quiet, and supports Dolby Vision. It’s also new hardware when most rival alternatives originate from 2019 or earlier. There are a few annoyances, primarily around manual settings adjustments, build quality, and a dated user interface. But with a relatively affordable $300 or less price point, the X700U’s offers excellent value. It’s my default recommendation for most people who want to enjoy 4K Blu-rays at home.
Gaming consoles and games have seen unprecedented price increases over the last month. Xboxes and PlayStations now cost between ten to twenty percent more than they did at their launch five years ago. Anticipated games like Mario Kart World and the next Call of Duty will sell for $80, breaking through the existing $70 price ceiling.
Gaming markets shouldn’t work this way. Consoles have always dropped in price over time. Game prices eventually increase, but never this aggressively; the last jump from $60 to $70 occurred only three years ago. These price shocks make an already pricey hobby even more expensive and will damage the console gaming market irrevocably.
Let’s examine how we got here. Two forces, one sudden and one gradual, arrived simultaneously in mid 2025. One followed textbook economics. The other was a progressive reaction to a slowing console market.
It’s unsurprising to see Xbox fully embrace a multi-platform strategy. Lagging behind Sony and Nintendo in hardware sales and user base, Microsoft can ensure far larger revenue streams by porting its first party games to PS5 and Switch. It’s a strategy that reflects broader industry trends, as escalating development costs and a stagnating console market push publishers like Square Enix and even PlayStation away from long term exclusivity.
However, Microsoft’s Xbox ecosystem — comprising Xbox hardware, Game Pass, and the Windows PC Xbox app — is where they generate maximal revenue and retain full editorial control. Intra ecosystem Xbox keeps the full share of revenue from their own products, while taking a 30% cut from every non-Microsoft purchase. It’s also for now the only space where Microsoft can sell Game Pass and have the technical leverage to integrate a cloud centric, cross platform solution to suit their needs.
Yet the Xbox ecosystem itself feels increasingly under threat. Game Pass subscribers have plateaued, and Xbox Series S and X hardware sales are dropping precipitously.
Rumors suggest PlayStation has a Horizon: Zero Dawn remaster on the way. It’s a frustrating development, confirming Sony’s talented first party studios are laser focused on sequels and remakes. Seeing Jim Ryan shut the doors on anything that isn’t a $100 million IP safe hit, with such creative talent at the helm, is a head-scratcher.
Less risk taking at Sony’s AAA level narrows the field for original experiences and IP and limits the greater potential of the industry. Audiences not into first person shooters and mature action adventures stay on the sidelines. Even for “core” gamers, variety helps; a side project this generation can evolve into the next big thing years from now.
I have well founded pessimism. PlayStation Studios PS5 releases follow a predictable formula: follow ups for Spiderman, Horizon, God of War, and The Last of Us. Three of the four get remasters or “director’s cuts” of their original entries, naturally sold at a $70 price point. Only Returnal and Destruction All Stars would be considered original IP releases, with Insomniac’s Wolverine on the distant horizon.
Another year, another opportunity for gaming discourse on the proper approach to open worlds. The typical argument puts Elden Ring and Zelda: Breath of the Wild on one side, Horizon: Forbidden West and Ubisoft franchises like Assassin’s Creed on the other. Elden Ring and BOTW have more emergent gameplay, with little hand holding, clearly laid out objectives, and access only gated through character leveling and player skill. Horizon and Assassin’s Creed are more prescriptive. There are icons and waypoints all over the map, with the game’s mechanics, stats, and side quests all laid bare to the player.
Modern critical consensus points to emergent open worlds as generally more satisfying. Prescriptive games drown the player in unfulfilled objectives, busy UIs, and too many icons on a map to follow and check off. The net result can feel like a game on autopilot or lead to “open world fatigue.”
Having played and completed Horizon, I find this argument unfair to Sony’s latest blockbuster, misclassifying its genre and intent. While critical discourse pits Elden Ring and Horizon as open world action RPGs first and foremost, in reality, I view Horizon as more of a linear adventure similar to a game like Uncharted or The Last of Us. Its open world elements are a secondary “hook” to string narrative segments of the game together.
I was torn watching Sony’s recent PS5 showcase. It’s always exciting to see Sony’s first party content given their studios’ strong track record. However, almost every game was predictable and safe in a way I wouldn’t expect from Sony in an earlier era. Overall the event reminded me of Disney’s recent filmmaking output: lucrative, fun, but creatively a bit hollow.
Comparing Disney films to PlayStation games may sound like a stretch, but consider the parallels through the lens of PS5 first party games from the showcase. Disney loves remakes of beloved hits (The Lion King, Aladdin). Sony will release two remastered Uncharted games in a new collection. Disney leans on sequels of well tested hits like Toy Story and Cars. Sony showcased God of War Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7. Also, Disney loves cranking out all things Marvel and Star Wars. Sony revealed teasers for Spider Man 2 and Wolverine. Stretching beyond first party content, Sony also gave prominent placement for a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake and a new Guardians of the Galaxy game.
Opinions around Microsoft’s 90 minute Xbox & Bethesda E3 showcase are positive, a highlight alongside Nintendo’s outing in an otherwise quiet E3 year. But there have been pockets of criticism around the show’s lack of depth and “wow factor.” VG247 argued there were not enough “next-gen show stoppers”. Threads on Resetera, social media, and Digital Foundry knocked the Xbox presentation for having too many CGI trailers.
I’m sympathetic to missing more hands on time with Microsoft’s upcoming lineup. However, much of this “depth” criticism is myopic, relevant to an earlier era where Microsoft’s core focus was on the number of games and consoles sold. Thirty trailers in ninety minutes may not be an optimal pitch for $70 games and $500 consoles. However, it is a very sound approach to push Game Pass.
E3 2021 has made it abundantly clear that Microsoft has bet Xbox’s future on subscriptions. Keeping gamers hooked on Game Pass is a different, tricker pitch than buying high profile games. Variety is a must, with enough titles and genres to attract a wide variety of subscribers. Quantity can also help. Not every game will interest a potential subscriber, but the feeling that many more games are coming to the service over time adds to its sense of value.
Every console generation begins with a slow trickle of game releases as developers transition to new hardware. The launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles in November last year won’t break the trend; through mid 2021 there may be fewer than ten titles exclusive to the Series X and PS5 combined. Nevertheless, the pandemic’s impact and unique hardware of this console generation — lightning fast SSDs and wide backward compatibility — will make this a gaming year like none we’ve ever had. Consider the experience “old game plus” where gamers spend a lot of time playing what came before but in revitalized ways.
Regarding the unfamiliar and new, it’s already a bleak sign to see how few firm release dates we have on the calendar three months into the year. I expect the news will only get more dire over time; many if not most titles with a vague 2021 release date will get bumped back to 2022.
The PS5’s solid state drive (SSD) has upended my expectations of what a console can deliver. It’s a greatly underrated technology, one that’s generated countless online comparisons around load time but remains elusive to quantify until you experience the tech yourself.
Almost from the first evening I turned on the PS5 the fast SSD made an immediate difference. Sans any PS5 specific optimizations from developers, the load times across much of my backwards compatible PS4 library improved significantly. MLB The Show 20 and Everybody’s Golf shifted from menu to game in roughly half the time. With the former I could simulate ball games far faster than before, and in the latter load times between holes were non existent. My handful of PS5 specific games — Astro’s Playroom, Bugsnax, and Demon’s Souls — had even more impressive stats, able to shift from launching the game to active gameplay in under twenty seconds. The console itself boots from a cold off state to the main menu faster than my TV could turn on. Navigating the UI across games and settings is smooth and ultra responsive.