ARS Technica conducted a study of the pricing policy of game consoles and came to the conclusion: PS5 and Xbox Series X today are almost twice as much as the “fair” price by historical standards.
The analysis has covered dozens of consoles since 1977 taking into account inflation and typical cost reduction cycles. Until 2016, the consoles in the first three years were usually twice cheaper, and by the fifth year they fell to 40% of the starting price.
Now the situation is different: modern prefixes retain up to 85–92% of their real price after three to five years. Even the eight -year -old Nintendo Switch costs 86% of the launch price, which is 50 points higher than the historical trend.
The reasons are a slowdown in the “Moore Law”, high production costs and the readiness of manufacturers to retain the cost without dumping.
At the same time, sales remain high, which confirms the readiness of the market to pay more. According to analysts, you should not wait for sharp reductions in prices for modern consoles: manufacturers are satisfied with current demand.
