Well, a lot of people defended Sony going from USD$60 to USD$70. I said it was bullshit then, and I say it's bullshit now.
Fewer people then defended Nintendo going from USD$70 to USD$90. I said it was bullshit then, and I say it's bullshit now.
The same people who defended Sony are now attacking Microsoft for going from USD$70 to USD$80. I say it's the same bullshit it's always been.
I've said in a different thread but I'll repeat it here: video games have entered the extraction phase of the enshitification process. These companies - Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony - aren't charging more money because they have to. There is no pressing survival need to charge AUD$130.00 for a fucking video game. Sony in particular are making record profits. No, they're charging more money because they have to show growth in revenue every quarter. Forever. If more people aren't buying their stuff - and there isn't because the industry has stopped growing - they now have to jack up the prices to make more revenue. It doesn't matter if fewer people buy their shit - it only matters if they make more revenue for this quarter. And then when a new game launches and it sells less because they've priced a percentage of their audience out of the market, they'll layoff developers to keep their profit margins up, jack up the prices again, and repeat. Sony started it, Nintendo followed them, and now Microsoft is jumping on board.