Dire Forecast Predicts 39 Million Fewer Consoles Sold If PS6 And Xbox Helix Are $1,000

Console gaming could continue to shrink if something doesn't change

Cheap game consoles can attract more players.The Wii showed this when competition helped lower prices during the peak time of the Xbox 360 and PS3 era.Now, if Sony and Microsoft can't control the costs for their new PlayStation 6 and Xbox's Project Helix, the opposite might happen.A new report by Ampere Analysis says that if these next-gen consoles are priced at $1,000, their number of users could be 38% lower than expected.

In the August 18 report, Piers Harding-Rolls, a senior research director at Ampere, wrote, “The way console gaming works economically has changed a lot.
If Sony and Microsoft bring out new consoles that are just slightly improved and priced much higher than usual, our predictions suggest they might end up reaching a smaller group of players.

He thinks that if the PS6 and Project Helix Xboxes are sold for $1,000 instead of $700, about 39 million fewer units will be bought in the first five years.The report also says there could be a 12% drop in how much players spend on games during the first three years of the next console generation if prices go up a lot.That means around $3.4 billion less in spending, most of which will go toward higher costs of parts powered by AI, not to the game sellers on these platforms.

The report suggests three ways to avoid missing out on a new console generation.
One is to push back the launch of the PS6 and Project Helix beyond the expected 2028 date until parts are cheaper.Another is for Sony and Microsoft to lower the prices more by covering the extra costs themselves to keep more people buying their consoles.The third idea is to make big changes in what the consoles can do, not just make them more powerful to show better graphics.

It seems difficult to see either company going with either of those options.Hoping that prices will suddenly drop after 2028 is a big risk, and it's not clear if hardware that has been in the design stage for years can be quickly changed to focus on a cheaper option that uses new tricks instead of just making the processor more powerful.The good news is that both console makers will be under pressure from the upcoming Switch 2, which is expected to cost around $500.

Nintendo chose innovation over power a long time ago, and that decision has led to the most affordable console on the market, one that hasn't had to give up much in terms of game quality.