"These price increases have multiple intertwining causes, some direct and some less so: inflation, pandemic-era supply crunches, the unpredictable trade policies of the Trump administration, and a gradual shift among console makers away from selling hardware at a loss or breaking even in the hopes that game sales will subsidize the hardware. And you never want to rule out good old shareholder-prioritizing corporate greed.
But one major factor, both in the price increases and in the reduction in drastic “slim”-style redesigns, is technical: the death of Moore’s Law and a noticeable slowdown in the rate at which processors and graphics chips can improve."
I can get ps5 graphics with a $280 video card, games are often way cheaper, I can hook the pc up to my TV, and still play with a ps5 or Xbox controller, or mouse and keyboard.
I suspect next gen there will be a ps6 and Xbox will make a cheap cloud gaming box and just go subscription only.
The internet isn't good enough globally to do that, and still won't be by 2030 after the ps6/nextbox is out. Maybe the gen after next. But even then, there's a lot of countries I could see still being patchy. Right now in Australia, Sony won't even let you access the PS3 streaming games because they know it won't work well enough.
Didn't Google Stadia do the cloud thing and failed miserably?