Featured Image Credit: Microsoft/ Future Publishing / Contributor / Getty
Every time a new console generation gets announced, there's a frenzy of excitement - but also concern from people trying to work out if they can actually afford to join in.
Games consoles are expensive, whichever way you look at it, and the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S generation that is still in progress has done little to combat that problem.
While the Xbox Series S is fairly affordable and has had some nice sale prices, the PS5 and Xbox Series X - which both launched at $499.99 - haven't had particularly impressive discounts at any point.
Advert
So, rumors that the next generation of consoles will be even more expensive are pretty disappointing to hear.
According to new reports, this is because the price of manufacturing the consoles hasn't declined over time like it might have been expected to - unlike years gone by, some component and material costs are actually rising.
This cancels out the savings generated by using established manufacturing techniques and supply lines, making for a situation where Microsoft and Sony seemingly cannot afford to lower the prices.
That isn't great news for anyone still saving up for an Xbox Series X or PS5 and hoping for a price fall, but it's also pessimistic for those already looking forward to the PS6 or next Xbox.
There's every chance that these consoles come out at frightening price points if they're aiming to make large technical leaps forward once again. Alternatively, their pricing could remain similar to today, but the challenge of actually innovating much with that restriction might mean they're not so impressive.
Cost per transistor has remained flat through FinFETs and will go up with GAAFETs/CFETs.
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) February 14, 2024
The days of free cost savings with die shrinks is over and things will only get worse.
Future consoles will either have increasingly smaller performance gains or significantly higher prices https://t.co/4UZSOzy4sh
We'll probably get an interesting insight into this side of things later this year, though. After all, rumors suggest that Sony is working on a PlayStation 5 Pro which will debut in late 2024 and offer chunky performance upgrades over the standard PS5.
The biggest question about this new hardware, alongside what it'll look like, is how expensive it'll be - since the base PS5 is still priced pretty high.
Sony will likely be trying to work out what people will be happy to pay for an upgrade of this sort, given it won't have exclusive games, and the price it ends up picking might be a pretty good indication of where the PS6, and by extension the next Xbox, could end up too.
