Prominent leaker KeplerL2 recently claimed that the cost of manufacturing Sony's upcoming PlayStation 6 console has increased considerably in recent months. Due to memory shortages, upcoming game...
A console used to be an appliance where you insert physical media and it just works. What you can play is limited, but you physically owned the games and had the freedom to sell them, trade them, or buy them used. The hardware was subsidized to make up for the lack of selection and at least you had a bit of freedom.
Now it’s just an expensive, locked down machine that plays a limited set of games that you can purchase, but can’t re-sell and can be taken away at any moment. Oh, and the thing requires an internet connection and is always spying on you.
I’m quite happy to wait years for the few exclusives to be available to emulate while playing the remaining games that will also be released for PC on a Linux machine I own and fully control. Even if the hardware costs a little more, it’s unequivocally worth it, especially since it won’t be just a gaming machine.
It really seems like the idea is to create walled gardens where you profit from every part of the ecosystem. The ecosystem gets augmented with surveillance because surveillance provides the information necessary to fine tune the ecosystem. The surveillance gets augmented with automation, scaling techniques, and machine learning because they believe that better data continues producing better results. Results being anything that effectively drives profit: vendor lock in, sales, monetizing resales, monetizing game sharing, reducing labor costs, …
At a certain point, the rest of the world should decide that the American bar is too low and easily competed with — right? I mean, who wants the fruits of late stage capitalism? I imagine nobody who hasn’t been raised and educated within a culture which pre-accepts these things as normal.
When the rest of the world begins competing better, do they thing foreign gaming consoles will be banned like foreign cars?
I think they absolutely plan to ban foreign shit because it’s better than theirs. It’s now a self-contained capitalistic society, which for everyone but them is kind of ideal. Let them human-centipede their own shitty products to themselves.
Agreed, it’s a low bar. Valve is doing it right where it just works if you’re using Steam, but the hardware is still yours to do as you please.
Judging by sales numbers, though, there have probably been a little over 5M Steam Decks sold vs. over 20M Switch 2s, 90M PS5s, etc. These companies have no incentive to offer a more fair deal if the general public will give them money either way. More competition would probably help to your point.
A console used to be an appliance where you insert physical media and it just works. What you can play is limited, but you physically owned the games and had the freedom to sell them, trade them, or buy them used. The hardware was subsidized to make up for the lack of selection and at least you had a bit of freedom.
Now it’s just an expensive, locked down machine that plays a limited set of games that you can purchase, but can’t re-sell and can be taken away at any moment. Oh, and the thing requires an internet connection and is always spying on you.
I’m quite happy to wait years for the few exclusives to be available to emulate while playing the remaining games that will also be released for PC on a Linux machine I own and fully control. Even if the hardware costs a little more, it’s unequivocally worth it, especially since it won’t be just a gaming machine.
It really seems like the idea is to create walled gardens where you profit from every part of the ecosystem. The ecosystem gets augmented with surveillance because surveillance provides the information necessary to fine tune the ecosystem. The surveillance gets augmented with automation, scaling techniques, and machine learning because they believe that better data continues producing better results. Results being anything that effectively drives profit: vendor lock in, sales, monetizing resales, monetizing game sharing, reducing labor costs, …
At a certain point, the rest of the world should decide that the American bar is too low and easily competed with — right? I mean, who wants the fruits of late stage capitalism? I imagine nobody who hasn’t been raised and educated within a culture which pre-accepts these things as normal.
When the rest of the world begins competing better, do they thing foreign gaming consoles will be banned like foreign cars?
I think they absolutely plan to ban foreign shit because it’s better than theirs. It’s now a self-contained capitalistic society, which for everyone but them is kind of ideal. Let them human-centipede their own shitty products to themselves.
Removed by mod
Agreed, it’s a low bar. Valve is doing it right where it just works if you’re using Steam, but the hardware is still yours to do as you please.
Judging by sales numbers, though, there have probably been a little over 5M Steam Decks sold vs. over 20M Switch 2s, 90M PS5s, etc. These companies have no incentive to offer a more fair deal if the general public will give them money either way. More competition would probably help to your point.