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Circana's November report doesn’t include Black Friday sales. Which wouldn’t really help things but might make Sony’s figures look a little better since they actually subsidised their consoles this time round.
But regardless, the video game industry isn’t paying for any sins here lmao. It’s a double whammy of the US economy being complete dogshit and Sony being the only manufacturer who is willing to subsidise their console in a world where memory prices have skyrocketed by 100% or more and they all have to deal with the issue of tariffs.
This is basically the tail end of the Xbox Series’ and PS5’s lifespan. Yet due to a combination of tariffs, component prices, and just the nature of semiconductors these days, there really isn’t room to cost cut enough to sell consoles to non-core consumers. Affluent consumers, who are holding up consumer spending, probably already have a PS5 if they ever wanted one.
At around the same time in the PS4’s lifespan, Sony was dumping them for $199 + game during Black Friday. The best they could do this time round was $399 for the disk-less digital version.
PC hardware affordability isn’t going to really be much better with manufacturers thinking about downgrading the amount of RAM in their products because a reasonable amount of RAM and solid state storage basically costs as much as a PS5 these days. Everything is being squeezed by the AI industry and an ever narrowing consumer base.
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On December 21 2025 15:23 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
Circana's November report doesn’t include Black Friday sales. Which wouldn’t really help things but might make Sony’s figures look a little better since they actually subsidised their consoles this time round.
But regardless, the video game industry isn’t paying for any sins here lmao. It’s a double whammy of the US economy being complete dogshit and Sony being the only manufacturer who is willing to subsidise their console in a world where memory prices have skyrocketed by 100% or more and they all have to deal with the issue of tariffs.
This is basically the tail end of the Xbox Series’ and PS5’s lifespan. Yet due to a combination of tariffs, component prices, and just the nature of semiconductors these days, there really isn’t room to cost cut enough to sell consoles to non-core consumers. Affluent consumers, who are holding up consumer spending, probably already have a PS5 if they ever wanted one.
At around the same time in the PS4’s lifespan, Sony was dumping them for $199 + game during Black Friday. The best they could do this time round was $399 for the disk-less digital version.
PC hardware affordability isn’t going to really be much better with manufacturers thinking about downgrading the amount of RAM in their products because a reasonable amount of RAM and solid state storage basically costs as much as a PS5 these days. Everything is being squeezed by the AI industry and an ever narrowing consumer base.
My main goal with my side gig next year is to get some work that mandates a little 3d modeling and printing so I can write a gaming rig off my taxes.
Prices are indeed insane right now.
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Major console makers made a conscious choice to raise their prices far above standard levels established for decades. Bonehead move.
On December 21 2025 15:23 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
It’s a double whammy of the US economy being complete dogshit
Source? or are you just makin' stuff up? this holiday season, consumers are spending like drunken sailors.
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-online-spending-surges-442-billion-during-five-day-holiday-shopping-adobe-2025-12-02/
They just ain't buyin' garbage video game hardware. If anything this could be an indicator people have money to spend so they don't want to stay inside. They want to go out and have fun IRL.
On December 21 2025 15:23 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
But regardless, the video game industry isn’t paying for any sins here lmao. It’s a double whammy of the US economy being complete dogshit and Sony being the only manufacturer who is willing to subsidise their console in a world where memory prices have skyrocketed by 100% or more and they all have to deal with the issue of tariffs.
There is more to the world than the USA though. That said, the US economy is ok.
For an over all bench mark the NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, and Wii were all less than ~$250 USD in 2025 money for much of their lifespan in Europe, USA, Canada, Japan etc.
I am not sure the US economy plays a straightforward role here. In fact, a bad economy might help home console sales. Spending on home video games in the USA dropped dramatically in 1983 in the face of a record setting economic boom. Every one had money so they went outside. In 1981 and 1982 When they were broke they stayed inside and played home console games. Notice, in 1983, during a great economy, that arcade video game spending hit record high levels.
Over the past 45 years consumers are accustomed to paying ~$250 USD in 2025 money for a NIntendo console. During the Switch1 peak where it had a great 3rd party indy ecosystem and great 1st party titles People were locked in their houses. The confluence of events that drove up Switch1 sales won't happen again. Nintendo's leadership fucked up. They should've seen these factors outside of their control driving up their sales levels.
Furthermore, consumers are accustomed to paying less than $250 USD in 2025 money for an aging console. XBOX and PS5 are over 5 years old and are rising in price rather than falling. They are rising in price world wide and not due to US tariffs.
Console prices are substantially higher in 2025 than in previous decades and consumers are looking elsewhere.
Why is the Nex Playground breaking through into the console market? 2 reasons.
#1. price
#2.it minimizes the negative health impacts on children compared to playing a handheld device. Parents are more conscious of the increasing and high myopia rates among children.
On December 21 2025 15:23 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
they all have to deal with the issue of tariffs.
The Switch2 and all its games are more expensive in Canada than in the USA. The console faces no tariffs in Canada. Once you adjust for sales taxes and currency the France price and USA price are very close with France's price being slightly higher. So I'm not sure US tariffs are a big factor.
Nintendo lowered the price of the Switch2 in France, its most important European market, DURING the holiday buying season. US Tariffs were not a factor. People did not want to pay Nintendo's price in France.
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Isn't the main competitor for consoles the mobile phone? Which people already own. Kind of like consoles used to be cheap entertainment since it was a small addon to the expensive monitor/TV.
On a phone you have books, audio books, social media, TV, movies etc competing with games on the same device and platform.
I am honestly surprised it keeps doing great.
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Nintendo has a 40+ year history of trying to differentiate itself from direct competition.
The Game Boy, power glove, ROB the Robot. the light gun and its games, the Super Scope. etc. etc.
On December 21 2025 19:45 Yurie wrote:Which people already own. Kind of like consoles used to be cheap entertainment since it was a small addon to the expensive monitor/TV.
the Atari 2600 has a B/W//Colour Switch in case you can't afford one of those fancy, expensive, colour TVs.
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The economy is dogshit, we've talked about this ad nauseum. Consumer spending is increasingly concentrated amongst the top percentage of income earners. As I explained in my post, this is the tail end of the console generation. It is logical to assume those with high disposable incomes already own a PS5.
Furthermore, consumers are accustomed to paying less than $250 USD in 2025 money for an aging console. XBOX and PS5 are over 5 years old and are rising in price rather than falling. They are rising in price world wide and not due to US tariffs.
Console prices are substantially higher in 2025 than in previous decades and consumers are looking elsewhere.
You are repeating exactly what I said.
This is basically the tail end of the Xbox Series’ and PS5’s lifespan. Yet due to a combination of tariffs, component prices, and just the nature of semiconductors these days, there really isn’t room to cost cut enough to sell consoles to non-core consumers. Affluent consumers, who are holding up consumer spending, probably already have a PS5 if they ever wanted one.
At around the same time in the PS4’s lifespan, Sony was dumping them for $199 + game during Black Friday. The best they could do this time round was $399 for the disk-less digital version.
PC hardware affordability isn’t going to really be much better with manufacturers thinking about downgrading the amount of RAM in their products because a reasonable amount of RAM and solid state storage basically costs as much as a PS5 these days. Everything is being squeezed by the AI industry and an ever narrowing consumer base.
Why is the Nex Playground breaking through into the console market? 2 reasons.
#1. price
#2.it minimizes the negative health impacts on children compared to playing a handheld device. Parents are more conscious of the increasing and high myopia rates among children.
No, it broke through because the Xbox Series is literally moribund and Microsoft has no intent on keeping the Xbox alive. Of course its #3, literally no one has a reason to buy an Xbox in 2025. They are actively telling you to not buy an Xbox in every way they can without actually saying so.
You continue to do that thing where you force fit everything to fit your narrative when the obvious reasons are dead obvious. The Xbox Series S was the same price as the digital PS5 during Black Friday. I repeat: why would anyone buy any Xbox in 2025.
The Switch2 and all its games are more expensive in Canada than in the USA. The console faces no tariffs in Canada. Once you adjust for sales taxes and currency the France price and USA price are very close with France's price being slightly higher. So I'm not sure US tariffs are a big factor.
Nintendo lowered the price of the Switch2 in France, its most important European market, DURING the holiday buying season. US Tariffs were not a factor. People did not want to pay Nintendo's price in France.
What are you even talking about here. Of course games are more expensive in Canada, that's just the market. You goddamn lived in Canada, you know Canadians always pay more.
Tariffs and high component prices are absolutely influencing console prices. Christ, Nintendo even lifted the price of accessories and not the console to alleviate pressures caused by US tariffs. Like they straight up said it during the product release.
And lowing prices during the holiday season? Unbelievable, we've never seen that before. Next you're going to point to Sony discounting PS4s during Black Friday and Christmas as a sign that the PS4 was a failure. The only decent point you've made is that there is a very good argument to be made that Switch 2 sales are slower than expected.
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On December 21 2025 19:45 Yurie wrote:
Isn't the main competitor for consoles the mobile phone? Which people already own. Kind of like consoles used to be cheap entertainment since it was a small addon to the expensive monitor/TV.
On a phone you have books, audio books, social media, TV, movies etc competing with games on the same device and platform.
I am honestly surprised it keeps doing great.
No, this was the same mistake people made when they said the mobile market would demolish the video game industry around the time the PS4 launched. The mobile market has shown way more growth than traditional platforms like consoles and PC but to say either has failed is a huge lie.
The major problem consoles are facing right now is a failure in business model. They need huge consumer bases to be sustainable as they make most of their money through all sort of middleman cuts. But there is price inflexibility right now because of the US tariffs, AI obsession driving up the price of essential components, and deteriorating consumer bases who just can't afford the luxuries let alone essentials.
No, we're not going to keep pointing to overall consumer spending to argue that people can afford things still. People can't afford shit.
Normally they'd be cutting prices all over the place right now to drive demand at the tail end of a console generation but the price cuts have been tepid at best. There just isn't anything substantial to cut anymore. With that being said, the PS5 might actually see a bit of traction if PC prices remain as prohibitively expensive as they currently are as its legitimately decent value when it costs as much as a bundle of RAM + storage in 2025.
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The Switch2 sells great in Japan because the prices are a lot lower. It is not because the economy is way better in Japan.
On December 22 2025 05:50 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
The economy is dogshit,
nah, the prices are too high. 1988 an NES was $80. 1992 SNES was $100. N64 in 1999 was $150 or $290 in today's money. Nintendo tried to set a high price for the N64 and they got steam rolled by Sony. Gamecube was $150 in 2002. etc etc. the Wii was low priced.
also, i'm not even sure the economy matters. major downturns in 1982, 1990, 2008, and 2020 they all didn't matter. The economy took a night and day swing from contracting by 1.6% in 1982 to growing by 4.6% in 1983 and home video game spending in the USA collapsed.
Nintendo's prices have never been this high. When Nintendo has tried to crank up their prices even a little bit the casual consumers do not buy.
Over the decades Nintendo has been responsive to inelasticity by lowering their prices.
On December 22 2025 05:50 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
What are you even talking about here. Of course games are more expensive in Canada, that's just the market. You goddamn lived in Canada, you know Canadians always pay more.
this is dead wrong. since the 1988 FTA prices in Canada and the USA are equal for consumer electronics and video game equipment. Before the FTA there were people who smuggled Atari and Intellivision Cartridges and game systems across the border when there were meaningful price differences. That ended a very long time ago.
France, Canada and the USA are all paying approximately the same price for the Switch2. Tariffs are not much of a factor if anything at all.
Trump announces all these evil tariffs and what happens? the prices of everything in Nintendo's previous gen and online services goes up in Canada while staying the same in the USA. LOL.
Also, up until about 2008 electricity was super dirt cheap in Ontario Canada. You could rent an apartment and not pay any electricity because it was too much hassle to monitor it for such little money. Until JUstin started demolishing coal plants. LOL.
in 1987, Reagan slapped tariffs on Japanese electronics and those goods became more expensive in the USA than in Canada. That is not happening with the current Trump tariffs.
I'd say Nintendo and Microsoft have made some bad moves over the past year and they are paying for those mistakes right now.
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Games being too expensive is definitely a big factor.
The more AAA tries to distinguish themselves by making production value way beyond India and AA can do, the less risk they taking with the core gameplay itself as well.
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Vince Zampella died.
https://old.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1pt8jtg/vince_zampella_video_game_developer_behind_call/
Rather curious circumstances.
On December 22 2025 05:50 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
The economy is dogshit, we've talked about this ad nauseum. Consumer spending is increasingly concentrated amongst the top percentage of income earners
The economy is not "dogshit". You're just making stuff up.
In 2025, the typical full-time working American experienced a gain in purchasing power as wage growth consistently outpaced inflation. By the third quarter of 2025, the median weekly earnings for the nation's 122.6 million full-time wage and salary workers rose to $1,214.
Notice the word "median" in there.. not "average". And, I am not claiming things are great. I am just saying they are NOT dogshit.
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Yet when we look at the job figures, industrial investment figures sans AI related investments, rapidly increasing amounts of debt delinquencies, rate of inflation in essentials, etc, can you really say the economy isn’t anything but dogshit? It’s laughable to tell anyone that wage increases are keeping up with inflation of essentials including health insurance, utilities and rent. Maybe they theoretically are but no one is feeling their wages keeping pace with inflation, this is exactly the same problem Biden had.
There is a reason why the Trump Administration’s worst polling aspect is the economy. It isn’t good, it isn’t mediocre, it’s straight up bad for the majority of individuals. This is an administration hellbent on conducting a tariff war with every country in the world yet bitches out specifically with regards to beef. You tell me why they bitched out.
The economy is absolutely dogshit for the majority of people that aren’t reaping the benefits of the AI bubble keeping consumer and industrial investment spending afloat.
Edit: And once again you refuse to comprehend the reason why the US tariffs would impact console manufacturers’ largest market and how that would result in price inflexibility.
It’s like you hear some narrative from some social media influencer and force everything to fit those world views. Like when you came rushing in here telling the world about the unique genius of predatory EA Sport loot boxes, which you probably heard about in some YouTube Short, as if this wasn’t something done by gacha games for like an entire decade at least.
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On December 24 2025 03:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Vince Zampella died. https://old.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1pt8jtg/vince_zampella_video_game_developer_behind_call/Rather curious circumstances. Show nested quote +On December 22 2025 05:50 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
The economy is dogshit, we've talked about this ad nauseum. Consumer spending is increasingly concentrated amongst the top percentage of income earners
The economy is not "dogshit". You're just making stuff up. In 2025, the typical full-time working American experienced a gain in purchasing power as wage growth consistently outpaced inflation. By the third quarter of 2025, the median weekly earnings for the nation's 122.6 million full-time wage and salary workers rose to $1,214. Notice the word "median" in there.. not "average". And, I am not claiming things are great. I am just saying they are NOT dogshit.
What is curious about the circumstances? He gunned his car lost control and hit something.
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So, the economy was fine in July when the Nintendo Switch 2 broke every sales record imaginable. Then, at some mysterious inflection point from August to October the economy tanked. ummm, ok.
On December 25 2025 10:47 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
Yet when we look at the job figures, industrial investment figures sans AI related investments, rapidly increasing amounts of debt delinquencies, rate of inflation in essentials, etc, can you really say the economy isn’t anything but dogshit? It’s laughable to tell anyone that wage increases are keeping up with inflation of essentials including health insurance, utilities and rent. Maybe they theoretically are but no one is feeling their wages keeping pace with inflation, this is exactly the same problem Biden had.
There is a reason why the Trump Administration’s worst polling aspect is the economy. It isn’t good, it isn’t mediocre, it’s straight up bad for the majority of individuals.
unemployment is up slightly. this is nothing like 1982, 1990, 2008 or 2020. What is odd is... during these bad economy times the video game industry did just fine. And, during the USA's biggest economic boom in the video game era in 1983 and 1984 video game spending DECLINED.
It’s laughable to tell anyone that wage increases are keeping up with inflation of essentials including health insurance, utilities and rent
i'm not saying they are. inflation is a BS stat. However, wages are going up. Unemployment is rising slightly and "essentials" are going up huge. Gas is down. Also, it depends what state you are in. And, 2025 is nothing like 1982 or 1990 or 2008 or 2020.
So, even if you want to make some wild claim that things are as bad as 1982 or 1990 or 2008 it does not necessarily follow that spending on video games should go down. In fact, this year spending on video games has stayed the same. Hardware is down... software is up. meh.
So blaming the economy makes little sense.
What is interesting is that in 1983 and 1984 when the video game industry declined the 1 shining star was the Commodore64. You paid for the hardware and the cost of the games was ~$3 for a 5.25" floppy disk. You pirated everything, but you did have to buy blank floppies which were no cheap in the early 80s. The thing most analogous in 2025 to the C64 would be the SteamDeck. Pay up front for the hardware and then pay very little money for the games.
On December 25 2025 10:47 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
There is a reason why the Trump Administration’s worst polling aspect is the economy. It isn’t good, it isn’t mediocre, it’s straight up bad for the majority of individuals. This is an administration hellbent on conducting a tariff war with every country in the world yet bitches out specifically with regards to beef. You tell me why they bitched out.
The economy is absolutely dogshit for the majority of people that aren’t reaping the benefits of the AI bubble keeping consumer and industrial investment spending afloat.
video game spending is flat in 2025 though. if the world is coming to an end people will stop wasting both MONEY AND TIME playing video games.
i think we're quagmired in a sea of mediocrity and that boring story doesn't get clicks. For clicks and views, I've got Trump's team telling me it is 1984 all over again. Meanwhile we've got his opponents telling us we are going to starve to death next month because the economy is collapsing.
I am SO FAR pleasantly surprised about tariffs. They have not had the # of bad impacts I thought they would. However, it is early on. This is no where near a final judgement on my part.
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On December 21 2025 19:45 Yurie wrote:
Isn't the main competitor for consoles the mobile phone? Which people already own. Kind of like consoles used to be cheap entertainment since it was a small addon to the expensive monitor/TV.
On a phone you have books, audio books, social media, TV, movies etc competing with games on the same device and platform.
I am honestly surprised it keeps doing great.
I think a phone is often a second choice device for most of those. The only advantage it has is that you already have it. An eBook Reader is vastly superior to a phone for reading books, and anything with a screen larger than tiny is better for TV and so forth.
The big advantage phones have is that they are very portable, so you always have them with you. But in any situation where that is not a core choice, i basically always choose a different device, and actively buy different devices.
I think the same is true for gaming (but i don't really do phone gaming, so someone else might know more there). Phones are just really bad as precision input devices, and phone screens are tiny.
This limits the kinds of games you could play on them (without feeling gimped if you ever experienced something else before) to stuff where it isn't that important to do anything quickly or precisely. A lot of gaming experiences simply cannot reasonably be had on a phone.
Once again the big advantage is the "already there" and "portable" thing. But i guess there are also people willing to play FPS on controllers, so clearly some people think differently than I do here.
Also, of course, mobile games are basically exclusively complete dogshit whale milking engines with all the worst shit game devs have ever thought of in basically all of them. That might also have hindered mobile gaming.
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These days, in NA, children are being actively steered away from playing games on phones by their parents. A big concern for parents is their kids possibly developing myopia. Sitting motionless, staring into an 18cm screen that is 25cm from your face isn't exactly a great activity for optimizing nervous system health.
Parents love that Nex Playground thing. The screen is far away and you're up and moving. Nintendo is losing the young audience while they are busy "optimizing profit".
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On December 30 2025 22:58 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
These days, in NA, children are being actively steered away from playing games on phones by their parents. A big concern for parents is their kids possibly developing myopia. Sitting motionless, staring into an 18cm screen that is 25cm from your face isn't exactly a great activity for optimizing nervous system health.
Parents love that Nex Playground thing. The screen is far away and you're up and moving. Nintendo is losing the young audience while they are busy "optimizing profit".
Agreed that Nintendo need another hit such as Pokemon Go. Something that uses device portability as a feature that adds to the game. Having more of that type of thing overall would be good for everybody.
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We use the switch 2 only for Just Dance!
5 yo loves it when she gets to dance with a parent. I'm sure there are other active games for it. For sure buying a karaoke style game when she can read.
It's just about setting rules. She didn't even know it could leave the dock until her cousin showed her yesterday and the only time she will get to play something off the TV is on an airplane.
Kids should only use a small screen for 20 minutes a day (or keep it easy and do as close to 0 as possible).
But games on the big screen is a proven concept.
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Seriously guys, do NOT buy Kickstarter games or Early Access games.
I'd view this a bit more differentiated. Do not buy promises. Only buy early access if what you get right now is worth your money. This also means never buy preorders (and kickstarters) in general.
Sometimes, early access is already in a state that is worth my money right now, even if nothing were to be developed in the future. In those cases, i view anything that happens in the future as free stuff.
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On February 02 2026 22:12 Simberto wrote:I'd view this a bit more differentiated. Do not buy promises. Only buy early access if what you get right now is worth your money. This also means never buy preorders (and kickstarters) in general. Sometimes, early access is already in a state that is worth my money right now, even if nothing were to be developed in the future. In those cases, i view anything that happens in the future as free stuff.
Fair enough 
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EPT
