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It’s funny to see that when the main console makers all raised their prices for the same reasons as this thing is expensive everyone was like “Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are so greedy! They hate their consumers!”
And this thing being overpriced it’s “oh sweet baby angel Gabe, we know the hardships upon thee in thine many literal ships at sea. Please accept my money.”
I’m joking here so calm down Steam nerds.
But I do think some folks need to realize none of these companies want to jack up their prices like this. Everyone wants to make a profit, sure, but AI is screwing everyone.
Except steam doesn’t charge to play online, let you install mods, and doesn’t sell games from 2017 for 70€. Also, you can use this as a normal PC you’re not locked in the seller’s ecosystem, you can buy games from Epic, Gog, etc… or use it to make spreadsheats or code if you feel like it.
(edit cuz typo)
I’ve seen this sentiment (yours) in a number of threads about Steam Hardware prices but I never actually see the inverse. In the circles I move in everyone seems to understand what’s going on broadly with chips. There is a pretty obvious correlation between the AI bubble and hardware prices and everyone has been drawing attention to it for months. Even in Nintendo spaces where hardly anyone cares about technical details and most would buy a cardboard box if it played Mario.
Here’s a post about Nintendo raising the price of the Switch 2 by $50. People there are much less “chill” about that price versus this Steam Machine that is essentially a PS5 by all accounts on performance.
In this thread the people may not be AS mean as I was saying, there are people in there going “fuck Nintendo” as though Nintendo wants the bad press from raising prices.
And I’m not saying people should love Nintendo. I don’t really care about that. It’s just always funny to see the juxtaposition between these things. Lemmy is definitely a “I love Steam! It’s my favorite place to license games and not really own them!” kind of community. I get it. But every one of these companies are getting screwed by the same political climate and hardware situations.
https://lemmy.world/post/46580000
That has less to do with the switch 2 and its price, and more about what ‘fuck Nintendo’ has always been about: Nintendo constantly being litigious, overpriced, and a totally locked-down ecosystem. Ultimately, that’s why folks rag on nintendo. If chode didn’t sue every game spinoff out of existence, attempt to shut down tournaments not sponsored by them, and all the other variety of scandals they’ve been involved, there’d be less ragging on them in general.
That post looks like it’s mostly people who already hated Nintendo (i.e most of Lemmy) taking the opportunity to meme about it and make jokes rather than genuine criticism from the perspective of people who actually wanted to buy a Switch 2.
And that’s kinda a big difference.
One genuine thing to remember though is Nintendo are making absolute bank on games, because every game on the system goes through them.
They can take a loss on the console and still make money later. That’s not necessarily the case with the steam box.
There is a bit of a difference since Nintendo can theoretically afford to sell Switch 2 at a slight loss and get the difference back in subscription and store fees, but with steam machine it’s not possible, since if they sell it too cheap people will start buying it as office PCs or something
I think the reason the big 3 get more shit for is is because they did it in the past without the excuse of A.I. - mind you, exclusive titles and paid online services were the main game for them and many console manufacturers sold their consoles at a loss. I guess that the margins on games are too slim now for the gaming system vendors to continue with that model?
The price increases were also a function of tariffs and junk, too. Just a big double whammy.
I think it was MS last year who started off the price hikes. Then they did another this year.
Nintendo had tariff issues right when the Switch 2 was launching then finally upped prices in the last month or so, and Sony just in the last couple of months had to adjust prices, too.
I don’t really think any of these companies raised console prices before the idiocy of the trump admin and the AI bubble, though. Not that I can recall at least.