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Xbox's CEO has hinted at the possibility of not only cheaper consoles in the immediate future but also for the next-generation of consoles too.
To say that this console generation has been an expensive one would be an understatement. For example, the older a console is, the more expensive it has become. That’s been across the board on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo. Typically, consoles reduce in price the closer we get to the next-generation.
We’ve heard plenty of excuses as to why consoles are getting more expensive the older they get. Perhaps the most genuine of which is the RAM shortage; the other being Donald Trump's tariffs on goods coming into the US is far less genuine, in my opinion.
I refuse to accept that goods coming into the US to be sold in the US would make consoles more expensive across the world, especially when most are manufactured in Asia.
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Whether it's the energy or food industry, corporations will use any excuse to squeeze even more money out of people, despite most already struggling financially, and it seems console manufacturers are, unfortunately, no exception.
While that may be very wishful thinking, the new Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, has seemingly suggested that lower console prices are under consideration for this console generation and the next.
As brought to our attention by Eurogamer, when talking to Fortune, on the topic of current console prices, Sharma said: “On hardware, we are in a crisis right now. The entire industry is, the costs are exponential. They are usually, at this point in the generation, about 50% of the [launch] cost, and we're seeing they're up 2.75 times. So yes, pricing is a lever, of course, but we must think about other options as well.”
Asha Sharma also said that players can’t afford to spend “thousands of dollars” on the next-generation Xbox console and that new business models may be approached.
We can only speculate what these plans mean, but Sharma does appear to suggest that hardware used for Xbox consoles going forward will face harder scrutiny, and perhaps there may even be more options on how consumers choose to play their games, with varying low and high prices.
I think it’s important not to get carried away at this stage, but if the next console generation is nothing like the current one, in terms of prices always increasing and if players have more options, that could be a big win.
We’ll just have to see how this plays out, and if the folks at Xbox do become more consumer-friendly, it will be interesting to see if PlayStation and Nintendo react.
READ MORE: Xbox's Next-Gen Project Helix Sets Official Release Window, It's Happening
