Surprise! Tariffs make things more expensive. I actually didn’t have to finish writing that. The whole smart document thing saw “tariffs make things…” and it completed the rest of it.
So yeah, now we’ve got the second price hike in 6 months for Microsoft consoles. We’re at a point where if you bought a Series X back in 2020 when they launched, you could sell it now five years later for a profit. And that’s even if you’ve used it for that long as well. Also amazingly, you could trade that in at a game store and now get FAR more for it than you would have 6 months ago.
It’s ridiculous. It’s also ridiculous with how much a console is going to cost. PS5’s were already up there and now the Xbox family is kinda surpassing it – in price mind you. Also, let me go back and point out that we’re nearing 6 years of these consoles being around. You look at ANY other time previous and tell me when you’ve seen the consoles GO UP in price where it isn’t a collectible but still on the shelves. Sure, they’ve released upgraded versions of these things with the Pro models and what not, but it’s never been like this before that I can remember.
And I won’t even bother to think what will happen when these companies start showing off their next generation of hardware. It feels like that is something on the horizon but I’m honestly hoping it is way down the line when we’re past this whole tariff thing and things have settled a bit. If it doesn’t, we’re probably looking at 800-1000 dollar consoles.
I don’t know if that’s the “sky is falling” mentality, but we’re already in the 650-750 range with what’s out there now and going beyond that with better hardware and stuff, the price will be significantly higher. If you want to get in now, you should. Do it before the price hike takes effect on October 3rd.
I saw another trailer for the Splinter Cell animated series for Netflix and I’m very excited for it. It won’t fill that void of having a new game in the series but it’s something to remind people it exists and hopefully resurges Ubisoft to get on the ball with whatever they’re working on. Ubisoft, it has been 4,416 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released.
Also, there’s been 4,400 job losses in the gaming industry since January 1, 2025.
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