this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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169
Chips aren’t improving like they used to, and it’s killing game console price cuts (arstechnica.com)
submitted 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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"These price increases have multiple intertwining causes, some direct and some less so: inflation, pandemic-era supply crunches, the unpredictable trade policies of the Trump administration, and a gradual shift among console makers away from selling hardware at a loss or breaking even in the hopes that game sales will subsidize the hardware. And you never want to rule out good old shareholder-prioritizing corporate greed.

But one major factor, both in the price increases and in the reduction in drastic “slim”-style redesigns, is technical: the death of Moore’s Law and a noticeable slowdown in the rate at which processors and graphics chips can improve."

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

GPU prices are ridiculous, but those GPUs are also ridiculously more powerful than anything in any console.

The rough equivalent to a PS5Pro's GPU component is a ... not current gen, not last gen, but the gen before that... find AMD's weakest GPU model in the 6 series, the RX 6600, and that is roughly the same performance as the GPU performance of a PS5Pro.

The Switch 2 may have an interesting, custom mobile grade Nvidia APU, but at this point, its not out yet, no benchmarks, etc.

Oh right also: If GPU prices for PCs remain elevated... well, any future consoles will also have elevated prices. Perhaps not to the same degree, but again, that will be because a console will be basically fairly low tier if you compared it to the range of PC hardware... and console mfgs can subsidize console costs with game sales... and they get discounts on ordering the components that go into their consoles by ordering in huge bulk volumes.