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“Gaming is becoming unaffordable” — Xbox CEO says the industry has an accessibility crisis
(www.windowscentral.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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Gaming is unaffordable? Yeah. GTA 6 is going to be $80, digital only, with single player locked behind a $100 price tag.
Yeah. Gaming IS unaffordable.
Single player is $80. A bunch of extra in-game trinkets are locked behind the $20 upsell.
wait what?
Yeah, I'm hearing they're selling an "Ultimate" version. Which is $100, and thats the only way to play single player.
Cosmetics. Not sure why they said single player.
Because G*mers and Lemmites love to spread misinformation
A new game was 60 dollars when I was 8. Im 31 now. Inflation puts the pricetag around 100 bucks if they stayed roughly the same cost. If gaming is unaffordable now its been that way since at least 2005.... There also wasn't a robust indie/cheap game scene to the tune of 10s of thousands easily accessible back then. Be annoyed about a price increase I guess but it's not like it's unfair or unaffordable comparatively.
NES games were $80. Thats why most households usually only had 1-2 games.
It wasn't until resell shops came around that everyone sold their games, and bought 2-3 used games with that money.
Video gaming was unaffordable in the 80s too. I think if you compare lifetime sales of most NES games to most modern games, you'll find the trend was that if your game wasn't mario, it didn't sell all that well on the NES. Even Zelda in the early days had a rough start.
Whereas these days, the industry has grown so much due to keeping prices relatively stable for 40 years. So now consoles sell more, games in general sell 10x more.
Prop that price up and watch the sales fall.
80 dollars in 1980 is the equivalent of 330 dollars today~ish. You're not grasping the inflation aspect I'm pointing to. When looking through that particular lense video games are cheaper now relative to historical context than they've ever been. Not to mention literally every consumer good increases in price consistantly to match/overcome inflation. Video games are WAY behind every other consumer product I can think of in that regard. This is especially true when talking entertainment products.
I grasp what you're saying. You're not grasping what I'm saying.
I'm saying as the price point came down through the 90s to $60, the amount of gamers went up.
And as $60 in the 2000s was worth less, gaming exploded in popularity again.
As it cost less, more people bought in. As costs rise, less people will buy.
A combination of high price tags, and low quality games caused the entire market to crash in 1983. To the point where video games was considered dead as disco.
We're nowhere close to that point right now, but this is the first time in 40 years they've reversed direction. Games have gotten cheaper over time, and the industry grew. Now they're making games more expensive. What is the logical outcome of that decision? If low prices make line go up, then high prices make line go.....where?
You're just so incorrect with logic so flawed in so many aspects there's just nowhere this conversation can go. Good luck out there.
You really shouldn't be downvoted for stating facts. Inflation is a real thing and prices of games have lagged significantly behind it for decades - that is an observable fact. The $60 price point was held static for almost two decades but inflation marches on, so in real terms most games are cheaper than ever.
The one thing that kind of does make gaming unaffordable currently is hardware prices, but you can still do the indie gaming you mentioned on a cheaper PC so it's mostly just the AAA market that is getting pricier.
The $60 price point was helped by the market expanding but that is going to be difficult with the hardware costs.
Devs need to bring down production costs. They should be making games at PS2 quality instead of maxing out PS5 Pros.
Yeah when I have an opinion like this I don't care about the downvotes.
High seas for everyone!
It's only on PS5 and XBOX, good luck with that!
eh... I can wait. It'll come to Steam eventually and then it'll be piratable.
True. Probably the best option. If they go for Denuvo it'll be a longer wait, but I'm sure it will be priority one for hackers.