---
title: 'The $500 Console Is Dead - Next-Gen Console Watch'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=HA5ADCuHyMI'
video_id: 'HA5ADCuHyMI'
date: 2026-08-08
duration_sec: 1244
---

# The $500 Console Is Dead - Next-Gen Console Watch

> Source: [The $500 Console Is Dead - Next-Gen Console Watch](https://youtube.com/watch?v=HA5ADCuHyMI)

## Summary

The video discusses the rising cost of gaming consoles, arguing that the era of the $500 console is over. It explores the factors driving price increases, including supply chain issues, tariffs, and a RAM shortage, and considers the potential consequences for the industry.

### Key Points

- **Current Console Prices** [00:23] — PS5 with disc drive costs $650, PS5 Pro $900, Xbox Series X with disc drive $800, Series S $500, Switch 2 $450 (going to $500).
- **Reasons for Price Increases** [01:15] — Pandemic caused shortages, tariffs drove up prices, and now the AI data center buildout is causing a RAM shortage that is expected to last into 2028.
- **No Return to $500** [03:47] — Even if supply chains normalize, consumers will be used to higher prices, and Sony and Microsoft have no incentive to lower them.
- **Risk of Market Crash** [12:54] — If consumers can't afford $1,000 consoles, the industry could crash, but unlike 1983, gamers have a vast library of older games to fall back on.
- **Nintendo's Success and Optimization** [15:07] — Nintendo's Switch 2 is successful because it's an affordable entry point, and developers should focus on optimization to support lower-end hardware.

## Transcript

hardware. I'm Damon Hatfield and this week I'm joined by Max Goville from Podcast Beyond and IGN senior manager hardware content Bmore Moore. We've gaming this generation has been going in the wrong direction. Both the
PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launched in 2020 at $500. Not quite six years later, a PS5 with a disc drive costs $650, and a PS5 Pro costs $900. An Xbox Series X with a disc drive is $800, and a Series S with just 512 gigs of storage
is 500. Nintendo Switch 2 launched last year at $450. It will go up to 500 next Machine costs $1,000 without a controller, and just 512 gigs of RAM.
The two TBTE model with a controller costs over $1,400. Now, Bo penned an op-ed about all this in which he correctly notes that this is an absolutely terrible time to be in the market for a new gaming console or PC.
But worse than that, he doesn't think there is any way back to the $500 console, at least for anyone but Nintendo. Bo, could you explain why you don't think there is hope for a return to console affordability?
>> Yeah, so first we have to talk a little bit about how we got here, which is, you know, there was it's it all started with the CO9 pandemic. uh supply chains were basically when we launched the consoles in 2020 they you know there were
shortages. It was really hard to get one. It took almost 2 years or more before you could just buy a PS5 off the shelf. You know you had to go and find resellers or find uh stock alerts to be able to buy one. Um so this meant that
you know two years in we were still paying full price if not scalper price for uh for you know a new console. that, you know, started to ease up about two to three years in. But then came tariffs and tariffs drove up the prices
of everything. This was what caused Nintendo to launch at 450 instead of 400. It caused, I believe, the first of the the if there wasn't an immediate price rise of the PS5 and the Series X, they certainly weren't coming down in
price. You know, normally we would start to see things trickle down via a slim console or holiday discounts. We didn't really get much of that. But that too, we almost could have gotten through it. I think we, you know,
tariffs eventually in theory get rescended, but then came the chip AI data center buildout that is affecting the price of everything affecting the price of everything because RAM chips are in pretty much all
of our electronics. It's the RAM that is used to make graphics cards, to make CPUs, to make your storage, and of course the RAM itself. Uh, and so now what a a RAM stick that usually that would have cost maybe a hundred bucks
before uh, you know, a relatively insignificant portion of an overall PC build or a console, that's now 300, 400, $600 potentially. And so you have these pieces of hardware that are just way, way, way more expensive than they should
way, way more expensive than they should have been. Now, the problem with anything returning to normal is that it's not going away anytime soon. The RAM shortage is expected to last well into 2028,
uh, if not longer. And so, by the time we get to any type of approaching normaly in terms of supply chains and availability of hardware, availability
of these chips, we're looking at, I don't know, 2028, 2029 maybe. And by then, we're going to have been basically used to paying these higher prices for several years now. And even if all of those various factors work themselves
out and everything, at that point, people will have been used to paying $700, $800 or more for their consoles. And I just don't see Sony or Microsoft And I just don't see Sony or Microsoft having any incentive to go way back down
because inflation is here to stay. And it is not the when inflation goes down, it's not the prices going down. It is the rate at which they are increasing returning to a normal rate. And so with high inflation, things the prices
they're just they're just moving up too quickly. And it's yeah, I I just don't see a world where there's any incentive for these companies to price their able to because the the hardware all of the hardware underneath them is that
much more expensive. >> Yeah, we actually just put up an article as we're recording this that apparently reportedly 2027's memory capacity is already sold out now. So definitely not easing up over the next year or so. But
Bo, I guess what my concern is, yeah, I think it is realistic that the prices um don't I don't think it's because people are going to get used to paying $1,000
for consoles. I don't I don't think most people can afford $1,000 for consoles, the industry, which could lead to a crash. So, I' I'd be curious to hear consumers getting used to being paying $1,000 for consoles because I don't
think they can't. At least not at the scale that would result in 100 plus million unit sales for a console generation. >> Yeah, I think the, you know, by then I'm sure we'll see discounts and, you know,
a 500 or cheaper price on maybe the Series X and the PS5 because by then and Project Helix and whatever these nextG consoles end up being. And the I
think the real question is what are those consoles going to be and what type of performance levels do they target? Because if we can't afford, you know, if this is how much it costs to create a console that cost that was, you know,
built five years ago, six years ago now, um what the the next gen [clears throat] >> is going to be all that more power all that much more powerful in theory. And if it is that much more powerful though,
then then it's going to require that much level that much more of a hardware much level that much more of a hardware commitment to just for the price for the price of the underlying hardware inside of it. It's well known that the consoles
are they're the best bang for your buck in terms of price to performance right when they come out because they are a new generation. There's a generational leap in what they're capable of doing. And at least in years past, the console
makers have been willing to basically they they take a they take a loss on the the hardware itself because they own the ecosystem and they were willing to make that back in software over the course of the lifetime of that
console. But the thing is is we're now going closer to these open markets. You know, Microsoft is putting its game on PlayStation consoles. PlayStation at locked down but more and more stuff is available on PC. Nintendo again it's
kind of doing its own thing. And so that's what I wonder is you know there I agree that people can't just there there's not going to be a market for >> But there is a that's the thing is there
is a market for a $900 PS5 and PS5 Pro and there is a market for $1,600 GPUs. the the price of graphics cards went up significantly over this period of time mentioned as well as they also saw these crypto the the booms in cryptocurrency
that created massive >> GPU shortages in 2018 and 2020 and then just mentioned and each time that that happened people got used to paying people were buying them and then when the nextG came out of those graphics
cards it wasn't fully at the inflated scalper price but it was also not as cheap as the generation before. >> Okay, Max, let's bring you in here. the $500 PlayStation is over? And can the PlayStation business remain healthy
the PlayStation business remain healthy at this elevated entry level price? say that Sony reads the room and sees that there are a whole lot of people who not as many who are willing to shell out
barrier to entry. You know, Sony has these amazing games that are exclusive really churning them out at a quick enough clip that I think it justifies,
next gen console. I just don't really feel like we need PS6 right now. Like, I don't think we're there for it. Um, I mean, we've we've seen we've seen the the price of of the PS5 go up. The kind of running theme at the beginning of the
there's nothing on there that really justifies needing a new console. So many games were either crossplatform or people were still playing PS4 games and yeah, I mean the PS5 Pro came along and and so far I haven't really seen a
So I'm really wondering what a PlayStation 6 could even do to, you know, entice me, let alone justify a massive price tag that it's probably like it's it's veering towards being a luxury item rather than uh you know an
easy point of entry to to gaming. like if you're, you know, spending $1,000, pound. You might as well just keep saving and buy a, you know, high-end gaming rig or a medium-end gaming rig and then swap out parts as needed. Uh,
you know, obviously there's a bit more tinkering involved with getting on the PC side of things, but it's also you get access to so many more games and the games themselves are are regularly cheaper. And, you know, Sony a couple
could count on them putting out a bunch of console exclusives. They were like, getting on the ground floor with this. I'm I know what I'm getting. It's easy to set up. It's, you know, a proven quantity. But, uh, yeah, not so much.
the console generation, we would see a price cut, and that would get a whole time around, I mean, we saw this with last gen as opposed to the mid-gen refresh being, oh, hey, it's a it's a leaner and cheaper model uh that we
launched a few years ago. Uh now it's like they launched the more expensive one and maybe get a price cut that would lead to the PS4 Pro. But in this case, the PS5 got more expensive and then we got the PS5 Pro, which if anything, the
only the most the most killer feature of the PS5 Pro is that it makes the regular the PS5 Pro is that it makes the regular PS5 uh look cheaper by comparison, just by the sheer nature that it is $900, which again, it just doesn't feel like
tag. And maybe that's what we should be paying for this kind of hardware given the state of everything. But I also just don't I don't I don't know. It just it it feels like um a high-end electronic device rather than like a cool video
game machine. Uh that said, Sony does make those. Did you know Sony still makes Walk Walkman's Walkman? They're MP3 players. Uh they make one that has an MSRP of $3,600 and 999 $3,700. It is a $3,700
goldplated Walkman. It's on sale now for 2,600. It comes with a a three-month subscription. Who is that for? That's for like Hideo Kojima when he's up late
credit card he's not supposed to. Like it's it is a obs absurd rockstar luxury item. I'm not going to say that they're going to put out a you know $3,500 console, but they know that there are people out there who will pay $1,000 for
whatever the next thing is. I just worry that most people aren't those people. >> Yeah, that's true. And I mean you look at the just today we got the news that at the just today we got the news that uh the recent PS4 PS5 release of Call of
uh the recent PS4 PS5 release of Call of Duty Black Ops 2 which is a what 16 13 year old game uh sold 8 million copies and it wasn't even it's not even a good port. People are fine playing older games. People are okay not getting games
cutting edge hardware. We don't need that. Like the bestselling game of the year is Mecca Chameleon which it's it it's not a big budget game clearly. Uh, and Nintendo is proving that you can you can make great games using, you know,
lower-end components. Life lifespan of the Switch One being proof of that. yeah, I mean, Sony obviously they're cool consumer electronics and and Microsoft obviously wants to make a kind
of consumer grade entry point to, you know, high-end PC gaming, you know, whatever the Helix is going to be. But, you know, these there will be cool games that take advantage of this power, but ultimately like, do we even need it? Uh,
and yeah, I just I feel like there's a whole other market of maybe the days of whole other market of maybe the days of the $500 new console are gone, but I I could see there being a whole a whole other area of just maybe it's just
lower-end components for cheaper. Maybe there's an appeal for that. I don't >> Yeah. That leads directly into my next point, which is that if consumers can't afford to buy thousand consoles and Sony and Microsoft either can't figure out a
way to bring prices down or refuse, then everything comes crashing down. Now, the video game industry has crashed before and it bounced back bigger and better difference is that the crash of 1983 wasn't about an affordability crisis. It
lowquality software and consumer interest drying up. They got burned one too many times by the ETSs and the Pac-Man home ports. People haven't lost interest in gaming today. They want to be able to access the newest games. But
another big difference between today and 1983 is that today we have a rich 50-year library of incredible games. Like Max was just alluding to, we now for a PlayStation 6 to have the luxury of buying the one or two releases
PlayStation can manage a year or buy an AYn Thor for 250 bucks, spend forever playing amazing older games. Okay, that's my take. I want to uh get both of yours on that. Bo, how about you first? Yeah, I think that's 100% right because
yes, the library of games that are available to play is just so vast now available to play is just so vast now and the that I think is the way it's the way this generation went and the way the next generation probably will go too is
that yes, the consoles are going to just be this. It's the Halo device. And when I say Halo, I don't mean Halo Combat Evolve, Halo, I don't mean Halo Combat Evolve, but Halo as in the high-end. Yeah. um
reaching the the the upper echelon of what the hardware can be in the same way that if you look at graphics cards there's everything from you know the the now 5090 uh if you're talking about the Nvidia 50 series a 5090 costs like well
it cost 2,000 at launch it's like 4,000 now I don't know who's buying that but apparently people are uh but also graphics cards go all the way down to costing two three 400 bucks and they play the same games and it's just the
graphics settings that you have to tweak. But in to some extent, as long as the game is still playable, and yes, unfortunately, there are games that they can look so bad that they are not playable. Don't get me started on the uh
new Master Chief, not Master Chief Collection, but Combat Evolved, >> Evolved, >> Campaign Evolved. Uh the as long as the lower-end hardware. And I think that's why Nintendo has been so successful this
generation. The Switch 2 is Nintendo's, I believe, second fastest selling console or fastest selling and second best overall selling. Uh, and it's because it's the affordable entry point. And the nice thing though about the
Switch 2 is that yes, it is at a lower graphical point than the the the PS5 and graphical point than the the the PS5 and the Series X, but it's not so bad as the Switch One because by the end of the Switch One's lifetime, it was getting
quite quite to the point of it was struggling pretty bad to play some of the latest games. But the Switch 2, it does a great job. And and so there's not much that you need this high-end hardware for other than making the games
just look so photorealistic or for the absolute best ray tracing or whatever it absolute best ray tracing or whatever it is that needs that fully, you know, maxed out settings. Um, the the critical thing though is going to come down to
thing though is going to come down to developer and game optimization because when the hardware is really good and it can run things easily, then developers don't have to put as much work into optimizing their game. But when you look
at games that the the games that run the best on a massive variety of hardware, super high-end, it's the stuff, it's the games that the the devs have put in the optimization work to make sure that it works on that lower-end hardware and not
works on that lower-end hardware and not only developing for the high-end. Yeah, Max, don't you think Nintendo is just I mean they've been set up for success uh in comparison to PS5 and Xbox Series X because they've got the more
much more affordable option and the best you know franchise library. You were talking about PlayStation's library. It's it's very strong, but it's it's not >> No. And I mean Nintendo's also they're putting out, you know, blockbuster
family films. They're opening theme parks. It's it Nintendo is shorthand for a video game console. that's been around long enough that that you know you're ground floor with video games that that's a pretty easy place to go. Pretty
straightforward. The one thing I think they they jumped on right when Sony was pulling out of this this space is the handheld side of things. Uh and you know speaking about what a what a PlayStation 6 could do that would get my attention.
I I honestly think if they were like hey we took a PS5 and we shrunk it and it's cool. It doesn't matter if it's a more powerful thing. Just the novelty of appealing. And I think that the success of the Steam Deck and the the RO ROG
handhelds and the fact that uh you know, Xbox has even dipped a toe into that there. And it's it's kind of ironic. You know, I bring up a $3,700 Walkman, but like Sony revolutionized the idea of
Walkman. Like they understand that people do like to have this kind of, you know, isolated experience. The thing that Nintendo is is kind of brilliant you're playing stuff on a screen that's yay big, it doesn't really need to be
yay big, it doesn't really need to be like 4K HDR 120 frames a second. It's nice when it runs smoothly, but when it comes down to it, it's that's not the, you know, that's not what makes a video game fun. Like Tears of the Kingdom was
what maybe the best game ever made and it's it's a Switch One game. It's wild. And the fact that the Switch 2 is as successful successful as it is and it successful successful as it is and it has uh you know enough enough horsepower
that games can get ported to it and run just fine. I think we're going to see a lot of a lot of third parties kind of hovering around you switch to compatible games like the you know you can make something like Resident Evil Reququum
which is a you know gorgeous nextG cutting edge game but it still runs fine on on a Switch too. So scoping projects accordingly is I think I think a key holding down that side of the industry is nice and reassuring. It would just be
kind of cool if I don't know Sony and Microsoft took notes and I don't know followed suit however makes sense. Well viewers, listeners, in spite of all of one of the most exciting months of the year for new game releases.
September is absolutely stuffed with new games. Wolverine, Fire Emblem, Control Resident, and more. So, we want to know what's your most anticipated game coming in September. Make sure to vote at ig.com or on Spotify the day this
episode goes live. We'll share the results with you next episode just like we can last week's poll. Um, we want to know PlayStation fans who are playing Halo Campaign Evolve for the first time, what do you think? Uh, and the results
are are are interesting here. They're they're very very similar. 29% said, "I I had multiplayer." But those are the people that are playing it. And then 21% said, "It's no kill zone." And 21% said,
Halo." So, very, very similar results on both sides of the coin there. Um, all right, that is our show. Thank you to both Max and Bo. Thank you to everyone show possible. My name is Damon. We'll be back next week with more of the
latest gaming hardware, and we'll see you then.
produced by Damon Hatfield, Jobert Aenza, and Sam Claybornne. Damon is also the host, and Max Scoville and Ryan McAffrey serve as regular panelists. with technical production by Marion Franen and Amir Rake. Audio engineering
is handled by Amir Rak. Post-production editing is by Jobert Autienza and graphic design is by Justin Vashon. NextG console watch is an IGM production NextG console watch is an IGM production and part of the Geek Media Network.