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Soulframe

Gaming, But At What Cost?

Because consoles are becoming less and less affordable and are losing popularity to PC gaming, what do you think the next generation of gaming consoles will look like? Will there be a focus on affordability at the expense of performance, or will expensive consoles be our new reality? – WanderingOpenCountry via Instagram

International trade policies installed over the last couple of years have combined with chip and memory shortages caused by the increased investment in AI to create a perfect storm for extremely expensive gaming hardware. But it’s not just consoles that are more expensive right now, as those policies and shortages that are impacting your console prices will impact your PC price tags, too. If you already own a beefy gaming rig, you might be in the clear for now, but unless things change, you may be in for a rude awakening if you need to upgrade your storage, memory, or graphics card.

If you’re looking at buying any kind of gaming or computing hardware in the near future, it would be prudent to set aside a little extra cash until either those policies are changed or the overinvestment in AI calms down. However, we don’t know if that will be anytime soon, so while, yes, something like a less powerful console (think the Xbox Series S) might make more sense now than ever, there is also a world where gaming becomes even more of an exclusive luxury hobby than it already is. We sincerely hope that doesn’t become the case.