Yo, what's going on guys? Mush back at it with another video. And if you could hear from the tone of my voice, I come to you with not so great news.
The floodgates have been opened and they were open when Nintendo announced that the price point of Mario Kart World would be $80. That Legend of Zelda: Tears from the Kingdom, a game that came out in early 2023, an upgraded version of that would be $80. We are living in what many would consider to be end times in the gaming world and it continues as now the latest publisher.
This being Microsoft has risen the price of their games. It's going to be a little bit humorous because the first publishers to raise prices of their games are also the console manufacturers. And I would argue that this being the way that it's done, it's just going to cause oh my god PlayStation so good for the consumers.
They're not raising any prices. If anybody, and I get it, it would be like the hardcore PlayStation fanboys that would say something like that. They are just living in La La Land if they don't think PlayStation is uh studying this.
That's why when Nintendo upped the prices of the Switch 2 games, it wasn't about Nintendo upping the prices in a vacuum. It was about the consequences that this was going to have in the larger gaming world. I'm not even crazy about Nintendo games like that.
I could give a damn if Nintendo decided all of their games would be $80 and then for whatever reason every other publisher on God's green earth decided, "Yeah, Nintendo could have $80 games, but we we really like that $70 price point. " That reality was just never going to happen. I saw Nintendo upping the price points as a snowball effect and the first domino of many that are going to fall and cause even more expensive games.
And now Xbox is the latest one. They announced a bunch of, you know, controller and console price increases. Series S 512 gigs going to 380 from 300.
Series S 1 TB going from 430 to 350. Series X digital, the digital only console going to 550 from $449. Series X standard price.
That's essentially their base console. 599 from $499. And then there's a two TBTE Galaxy special edition.
That's $730 up from $599. By the way, that's now more expensive than the PS5 Pro. I highly doubt that the PS5 Pro, which by the way also has a two terbte uh NVME SSD, is going to stay at $700.
I don't know, maybe they will. Maybe Sony will decide that, yeah, now we're really going to think about the consumer because all all this time we've been upping the price of PlayStation Plus and everything under the sun. Now we're going to think about the consumer.
We we haven't been doing anything that the consumers want as far as remasters, new games. We wanted to chase live service, but now when it comes to the game price points, we're going to listen to the consumer. If you think PlayStation and Sony of all publishers at this point who have proven time after time that they don't give an absolute f about their fan base, you are absolutely kidding yourself.
And none of these publishers really give that much of a crap about their fan base. It's about they're running a business and I understand that. But the fact that Sony can be viewed and heralded in this light that oh they care about their consumers when they've been upping the price of PlayStation Plus when they've been doing essentially nothing that the consumers have wanted.
The hardcore PlayStation fans and they've been chasing the live service bag like their life depends on it. Yeah, that's the publisher that's going to keep their price points. And by the way, PlayStation 5 prices have already gone up in other regions.
Domestically, it has stayed at the same price point, but I would have to imagine that it's eventually going to go up in price as well. Nonetheless, I don't really want to go down the rabbit hole of the console wars that much as far as the relevance to PC gaming. Obviously, again, this is the second domino that is falling.
Xbox is the second publisher that is upping the price points and they've confirmed $80 games are coming this holiday. Now, Xbox is interesting because they do have the Game Pass model as well. Game Pass PC that still is one of the most insane values in gaming.
The only thing is Game Pass on PC, even with that being offered, it doesn't cannibalize sales as much as Game Pass does on consoles. Game Pass PC because it's in its own climb because it's not baked into Steam. Steam games still see a lot of sales.
Look at a game like Expedition 33, which I'm sure it's had some of its sales cannibalized by uh it being on Game Pass. I got a close friend of mine that was super excited for the game, decided to play it on Game Pass. He would have absolutely bought the game if it wasn't uh available on Game Pass.
But, you know, from the standpoint of it completely destroying sales, it does not do that. And Expedition 33, as I'm recording this video at 115,000 concurrent players, how about that? But, uh, Game Pass is still available on PC and it offers an incredible value.
And I would say, you know, let's say this holiday season a game like Ninja Gaiden 4 comes out and that's priced at $80 on Steam. Are you going to be running out like I am so excited for Ninja Gaiden 4? I think that game looks great and thankfully I'm in this position where I could I can have access to all of these games.
But if I was the average person, would I be running out to spend $80 on Ninja 4? Probably not. Probably not.
That's probably going to be a 12 to 14 hour experience and $80 for that. Look, I don't want to judge a game just based on how much quantity of hours it's going to give me. And, you know, a game like that is going to be replayable.
People will go through it multiple times, but $80 for a 12-h hour game. Uh, sounds kind of wild when games at the quality level of Expedition 33 exist. It's not super lengthy, but it's still going to offer you a 30hour main story and optional side content at a $49.
99 price point. I think now developers and publishers have to ask themselves, how much can we let the budgets of these games balloon? And Ninja Got in 4 is just a hypothetical.
I don't know if that's going to be $80. It could very well end up sticking with a $70 price tag, which I think would be great. Oblivion I thought was going to be 70 bucks and it ended up being $50.
Um, I do also think there's this idea that Microsoft certainly has that if we price our games at $80, first of all, we'll make more money on the front, but also it increases the value proposition of Game Pass on the back end because now you have these games selling for $80, but it incentivizes people to sign up for Game Pass at however many dollars a month. I think it's $11 a month on PC. Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate I think is like 21 or something like that.
still incredible value for all the content you're getting. Access to all of those games and games going at $80 certainly would make it even more incentivized. And Microsoft also, don't forget, does the gimmick of the fake early access all the time.
Like Doom Eternal, I believe, has a $100 early access edition where they promote their games coming day one to Game Pass, but at the same time, they're sly and do fake early access. No, the people that pay for the fake early access are the ones actually getting the games on day one. Game Pass is getting a slightly delayed release.
That's what's actually going on. But it's very interesting that they can promote games coming to day uh to Game Pass day one and then sell you early access even if you're a Game Pass subscriber. You can buy upgrades and Microsoft's very crafty with that.
Most people aren't going to pick up on that, but your boy uh is going to, you know, look at things like that. But uh don't hate the player, hate the game. And Microsoft, you know, came up with a pretty uh slick formula there where they sell you fake early access, but then they also market games coming day one to Xbox Game Pass.
Pretty interesting. But uh this is going to be a reality going forward. It's just that publishers got to be super selective, man, on which games are going to be $80.
Expedition 33, I think a big reason why a lot of people ended up checking it out is because it was priced at $50. And hell, after playing that game, if Expedition 33 was priced at $80, it would be one of those games that I think most people would say easily worth $80 because it's at that quality level. The reality is the Kalisto Protocol, Immortals of Aum, Wild Hearts, Need for Speed Heat, games that came out at $70 would do even worse than they already did at $80.
Kalisto Protocol at $80 would be thievery. It It could not happen. Immortals of AAM at $80, you give me thievery.
Uh, you know, you do have to be selective on which games can go with the $80 price tag, but going to be one of the most interesting stories to follow for the rest of 2025. Let me know all of your thoughts in the comments section down below. Interested to hear from you guys.
Look, I'm sure there's going to be some crazy takes on, oh, this is going to cause me to quit gaming. PC hardware is going up in price as well. I think that's that's one of if you're a PC gamer, that's going to be the biggest barrier for you to continue gaming.
But as far as game price points, brothers, like these games go on sale all the time. Steam's got a bevy of games on sale. And even if you don't want to get whatever, like an RTX 5080 PC, if you're still rocking, let's say, a GTX 1060, you still have access to so many great games, it's not even funny that you can still play and have a great time with.
So, I think the idea of um quitting gaming is un is not something you should look at, but being more selective, absolutely. being a little bit smarter about which games you play, playing older games. Absolutely.
I think that's something everybody should look at. But that'll do it for me. Your thoughts down below.
As always guys, thanks for watching and I will catch you guys in the next one. Peace out. Hey, what's going on guys?
Mush here again. Hope you enjoyed the video. As you guys might know, YouTube's notification system is sometimes a little bit wonky.
Even if you're subscribed to the channel, maybe you're not abundantly aware that I uploaded a video. To remedy that situation, make sure you hit the bell notification button. This way, whenever I upload a new video, and I try to upload as consistently as possible, you will be notified directly of the upload, and you can watch it as soon as it goes live.
I would really appreciate if you guys hit that button so you can stay up to date with all of the content I'm posting. But as always guys, thanks for watching and I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace out.
