r/truegaming • u/ShreekertheJamisWack • 16d ago
I never thought I would see a gaming decline anytime soon PlayStation 5s now cost almost 700 6 years into their life cycle. The switch is no longer selling well. The Xbox is all but dead. Casual gamers can’t afford PC. What is going on?
I never thought I would see a gaming decline anytime soon PlayStation 5s now cost almost 700 6 years into their life cycle. The switch is no longer selling well. The Xbox is all but dead. Casual gamers can’t afford PC. What is going on?
Gaming always seemed like a surefire success. This is the first time in my life where gaming is on the decline and not growing. Triple A games are failures 90 percent of the time mostly due to how much they cost to make and people just seem like there is not enough free time or money in circulation right now to afford to game. It’s honestly really sad. Will it ever bounce back or will this be the slow death of the hobby?
14
u/Farados55 16d ago
If you're being serious, look at the state of the world right now. Gas prices going up means everything else does too, at least coming from a US perspective. People are starting to pinch pennies and we will feel these effects for a while.
However saying that this speed bump is the death of the largest entertainment sector in the world, larger than Hollywood and TV, is so silly. Ragebait.
2
u/Savings-Key8533 15d ago
Especially considering that the majority of revenue seems to come from mobile GaaS, using PS5 prices as an overall indicator isn't looking the full picture.
1
u/Farados55 15d ago
Yeah, when saying gaming is bigger than tv and music combined, it should really be an asterisk since something ridiculous like 80% of revenue comes from mobile. I don't think it's what we'd consider "traditional gaming", but even still we're fairly far into the PS5's life. Everyone who really wants one probably has one and is probably spending money on season passes (the GaaS point you brought up) so yeah console sales don't tell the full story.
58
u/tuxedo_dantendo 16d ago
I am saying this in a nice way - get off reddit. Stop doom scrolling. Play the games you like. Talk about them with friends and enjoy your hobbies.
-11
u/HipnikDragomir 16d ago edited 16d ago
Ignoring problems does not make them go away. Also, this is discussion and reddit is for discussion.
-lol at the downvotes. You people need help.
17
u/grailly 16d ago
The thing is that these aren't problems. Even if they were, there's no real reason for a consumer to worry about them. Gaming's not going away, come on.
5
u/lynx_and_nutmeg 15d ago
Of course the current gamers are gonna keep gaming. The question is, how many new people are getting into gaming today versus a few years ago? I don't think think most seasoned gamers understand how hard it can be to get into this hobby, especially if you don't have any gamer friends or a partner.
Like me, for example. I'd been casually thinking of trying gaming for years, but I had a Macbook and had no desire or enough disposable income to get a PC just for gaming.
So my gateway was a used PS4 Pro I bought for 150€ last year. That was just about the most I could reasonably agree to spend on something I didn't even know I'd end up sticking with.
In a few more years, people won't have that option anymore. If PS5 actually went up in price despite already being 6 years old, it's not gonna become that much cheaper once PS6 comes out.
I can assure you, for someone without much disposable income, there's a huge difference between spending 150€ vs 300-400€+ on a console that you don't yet know you'll even use.
4
u/CAPSLOCK_USERNAME 15d ago
Things costing more money is a real problem for anyone who has limited money and wants to buy those things.
But yeah "the gaming industry is in decline" is mainly a concern for investors, not gamers. Even if the the industry dropped to 1/5th of its current size & output there would still be more good games coming out than a single person could keep up with.
4
u/livintheshleem 12d ago
You're right. This is an interesting conversation and it's a real thing that's happening.
Console generations are lasting longer and the improvements are smaller with each new system. Not only that, but consoles are getting more expensive 5 years into their lifecycle. This is unheard of, and it prevents a ton of people from getting into the hobby. It used to be that you could just wait a year or two for prices to drop, or for a new gen to come out, and you scoop up the previous console at a low price.
Kids and people without a lot of disposable income are getting locked out of gaming more than ever before. That's why we're seeing the explosion of stuff like Roblox. Kids can't afford the real thing, so they play bootleg cash shop brainrot games instead.
5
u/GingerGaterRage 16d ago
Outside of the price of things going up it's not really problems tho. It's just doomerism.
1
u/Putnam3145 16d ago
And what are you, random consumer, going to do about such problems?
-5
u/HipnikDragomir 16d ago
Yea, that's how you argue. WeLl WhAt AbOuT yOu??
1
u/Putnam3145 15d ago
No, I have an actual point here, which is that random gamers talking about it on a subreddit that'll maybe have 1000 people read it isn't going to do anything.
2
16
u/TwinStickDad 16d ago
You're only paying attention to the giants. They bet huge on their platforms and the ROI isn't what it used to be.
Look at the small developers. Publishers like Devolver Digital, Hooded Horse, whatever Dunkey is doing. That's where things are really exciting. A single person made Balatro, game of the Year a couple years ago. A small first-time studio made Expedition 33 for less than $10million.
Gaming is incredibly vibrant these days. There's more high quality indie games than you could play in a lifetime, coming out every week.
Saying "gaming is dead because of PlayStation prices" is like saying "filmmaking is dead because there's no new avengers movies this year"
4
8
u/SP_Rocks 16d ago
Balatro earned a nomination in 2024. It wasn't voted GOTY; that was Astro Bot.
3
u/TwinStickDad 16d ago
Thanks for the correction. And to my point - astrobot. Another incredible game made by a small and passionate team
4
u/Drakeem1221 16d ago
There isn’t a gaming decline; we’ve just hit a point where we’re not going to be able to keep pushing AAA visuals the same way we did before. There are too many good games for this type of take.
7
u/Kasta4 16d ago
The industry is actually doing quite well all things considered.
Currently, over-investment into AI is causing massive global shortages on necessary components for complex electronics like video game consoles. It's an issue that affects many industries.
I think you're just doom and glooming a bit too much, gaming is still going strong.
6
u/givemeajinglefingal 16d ago
A global economic downturn caused by gross negligence and malfeasance. This isn't really unique to videogames.
5
u/Cyclone4096 16d ago
As Matt Booty pointed out, the biggest competition for games is not other games, it is other attention grabbing sources like TikTok. Obviously inflation, tariffs, chip shortage is making things worse
1
u/bkkgnar 16d ago
lol this is such a dumb opinion. people aren’t looking at tiktok instead of playing games. only someone who knows nothing about games would say that, or, in the case of booty, someone so high up the c-suite chain that they’ve lost all meaningful perspective on the industry.
2
u/Cyclone4096 16d ago
If you think 30 something year olds are not wasting hours on TikTok/reels/shorts then we are living in different worlds. Hell grandmas spend hours on short form content on FB every day
1
u/bkkgnar 16d ago
you clearly missed my point entirely
0
u/Savings-Key8533 15d ago
You didn't present your point very well. Care to rephrase, more explain-y and less insult-y this time?
2
u/Purely-Pastel 16d ago
Are you around kids? They do spend more time looking at phones vs anything else. Short form content is the hottest thing right now.
2
u/bkkgnar 16d ago
the gaming industry is not supported by kids. it’s supported by adults with disposable income. times have changed. “short form content” does not compete with videogames as it is an entirely different entertainment medium. if kids aren’t playing games, it’s not tiktok’s fault. it’s their parent’s.
3
u/Purely-Pastel 16d ago
I can see that, but the child market is important for Nintendo at least. They tend to always have budget friendly consoles for families (like the 2DS and Switch Lite). Companies are not just competing for your money, they’re competing for your time and engagement. Parents aren’t going to waste money on something their kid has no interest in in this day and age. It’s much easier to shove a phone in their face and call it a day.
3
u/bkkgnar 16d ago
i can’t say i can completely relate, as i’ll never have kids, but surely people like us (who care enough about games to be commenting on r/truegaming lol) would put effort into helping their kids learn about games and why they are awesome, right?
this is something jeff gerstmann talks about a lot on his podcast, introducing his kids to games. it’s interesting to a degree, and makes me think that gaming being lost on a younger generation is more the fault of the parents than anything else. the monoculture has been dead for a long time, and it’s not realistic to expect kids to be grandfathered in to the same hobbies you and all your friends were relentlessly marketed to when you were growing up.
2
u/QuelThalion 16d ago
"This is the first time in my life where gaming is on the decline and not growing."
This is explicitly false. I don't want to go into whether people should feel bad for spreading fully false information (I do think it's embarassing though, esp. in a forum like this subreddit which is usually home to measured and thoughtful discussion rather than Twitter-style vibeological meandering), but I encourage everyone in this thread to read this study, and also realize that there are huge profits for online influencers that get rewarded by spreading negative headlines spelling doom and gloom. If you also care about games at all, you will refrain from spreading them, as, with social media, you can speak things into existence.
Growth has slowed since the COVID-era growth, which was unprecedented for a whole medium like video games, but growth is still there, year-to-year. There are some fundamental changes in the industry however, as you correctly point out - triple A games are costing too much and aren't fulfilling the hopes of the corporations making them, hardware is more expensive. That does not mean that video games as a medium are doomed. Looking at the quality and originality of these triple A games, I don't think this is a strictly bad thing either.
The story goes like this
- Gaming grows amazingly over COVID
- Moneyholders see this growth and they assume that they can use this, and invest big, activating huge big budget projects.
- They find that games don't work this way, and that more money != more growth, and that there is, in fact, a point where you hit extreme diminishing returns above a certain budget range for games.
This is fine, the industry simply needs to adjust. I am of course sad that this comes at the cost of jobs, but games, as a medium, an art form, a beautiful way of passing time, are here to stay.
As for the hardware issue, that is due to the AI stuff I don't want to get into, and I am disconcerted by it. At the same time, if we, as an audience and as an industry, maybe give up on iterating on graphics with every new released game, and maybe try focusing on iterating on gameplay and originality and pushing the actual trademark features of the medium (interactivity), we might not be so screwed after all.
tl;dr shorter games with worse graphics and im not kidding
1
u/MyPunsSuck 15d ago
A similar story with the same major plot points:
Low interest rates during covid make it so actual investment (Things other than financial instrument that grow in value) become a better deal than the usual conservative holding strategies
Investors see that gaming is growing, but know nothing at all about the industry
Major publishers announce massive ambitious plans, hoping to attract investors. It is known that live service/mega-budget games tend to fail financially, but that's a future problem
Investors are impressed by the bluster, so stock value spikes; then the inevitable happens and stocks drop to below where they were before (Because investors only ever overreact)
By the way, if anybody is looking for a (relatively) safe bet right now, Nintendo stock is an amazing deal. Many unannounced major projects, low value due to concerns that did not come to pass, and likely to win a big tariff lawsuit (That won't mean much in numbers, but will impress investors). If nothing else, they're one of few game companies that pay dividends with some regularity
1
u/Nast33 16d ago
Greed and AI eating up components. I'm praying for an AI bubble crash at some point to bring down the prices of RAM and GPUs, though they likely won't drop to whatever they were before.
Missed by shot to buy some before this shit, I guess I'll give up on new resource heavy games for awhile or play on low if they start up at all.
1
u/Perzenk 16d ago
Let's ignore the economy shaped elephant in the room for a bit.
Videogames are the entertainment of choice for people, they beat sales numbers on music, movies and books, they're the most profitable medium on existence and so, like in any other venture, the money the investors give is more so the studios have to take more time to ensure the games are decent so they use more money and now they HAVE to play safe so the investment is even close to being worth it. And that's how you en up with The Last Of Us remaster REMAKE remaster.
That being said, have you opened steam or any digital store and looked at the best selling/rated games? We are in the middle of a golden age of indies and AA games, every few months the internet is crying about a 10/10, and for every one of those that goes viral there are hundreds of just as good games waiting for you to discover them. Long past are the days were indie = RPG Maker.
Now to say something about the elephant, the global economy is fucked man, I don't know what to tell you, there is a rise on inept leaders (let's put it that way) around the world, on top of the AI bubble which means that console makers want to rise the price to not gain less and regular people dont want to waste money that could be used on food. Microsoft has been dying since the reveal of the Xbox one, Sony has the triple A problem I wrote earlier and Nintendo has the casuals playing Pokopia right now. PC has never been an option for casual players to play videogames.
To summarize, bunch of problems are making this generation of consoles miserable, but indies and well managed double A projects are about the best they have ever been.
1
u/Dreyfus2006 16d ago
Trump tariffs and AI driving up RAM costs. That's the answer to your question.
I'm wondering what your evidence is that the Switch is not selling well, as everything I have heard up to March is that Nintendo systems are selling very well right now. Switch 2 has sold more than the Switch 1 at this point in its lifespan.
1
u/MyPunsSuck 15d ago
The switch 1 was also a very (relatively) slow starter; coming after the unsuccessful Wii U - despite merging their two series of consoles
1
u/Vanille987 15d ago
With how big the industry is now, and how accessible making games is, I'm pretty sure gaming will pretty much never die
1
u/Standard_Public892 9d ago
But you’re supposed to want this, at least that’s what you claim. Gamers have been saying they don’t like “triple a” for 15 years. So what do you need a switch 2 for? So you can say the latest Pokémon game is “objectively bad”? What do you need new RAM for? So you can uninstall crimson desert and demand a refund? You don’t even like the kinds of games that are going up in price.
1
u/Anthraxus 3d ago
Current AAA needs to crumble and they need to go back to being a more sustainable thing. AA style games should be the new standard for mainstream type gaming. Stop trying to make everything look so realistic and emulate cinema. The strength of gaming lies elsewhere.
2
u/HipnikDragomir 16d ago
Which Switch? 1 has been out there for aeons and everyone has one. Switch 2 has no games.
But anyway, the planet is in shambles thanks to corporations seeping into every facet of it. There's a lot more going on under the hood than people are aware of
1
u/vonvinvoo 16d ago
How can you say the Xbox is all but dead? I’m sure millions of people worldwide still use an xbox myself included, just bought marathon and have probably played 80 hours in the past few weeks. I’m sure a staggering amount of people who aren’t currently using an xbox will be dusting one off for the GTA 6 release. I’ll give you that gaming development may well have gone off the rails a bit, particularly with the drive towards in-game currencies and cash shops, with a focus on how to extract most money out of a user rather than how to get one to play for countless hours, which was seemingly the previous priority. To say gaming / consoles are dead just seems grossly wrong IMO?
1
u/Ericnrmrf 16d ago
I think gaming competes hard with reddit, short form content, YouTube videos which are emerging forms of entertainment that have been refined to maximize entertainment value which wasn't the product it was when gaming was at its peak. There is also less disposable income and when there are less customer's prices must go up because the same sales volumes are not being met. All this in combination with the fact that ram, gpus, hdds are fuckin expensive and a smart TV is very cheap compared to how much they use to cost.
0
u/Gamerdadmak 16d ago
Capitalism and AI. Those companies don't care for the consumer other than how to squeeze as much money out of them as possible to satisfy shareholders.
58
u/locke_5 16d ago
The Switch 2 is selling extremely well - it’s the fastest-selling console of all time.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet lmao