This is something I've been thinking about lately.
Not long ago, Sony quietly raised the price of the PlayStation 5 outside of the United States. Now of course price hikes aren't exactly unusual in 2022 (inflation and all that), but for gaming systems this is a unique development. Never before in the history of console video gaming have I seen the company behind a system raise its price years after launch. Indeed, the price generally gets cut as time goes on because the initial wave of demand slows down and the company recovers its hardware investment. What seems even more significant to me about Sony's decision is the fact that the PS5 isn't leading the market on console sales. It consistently trails the Switch not only in overall sales, but also in week-to-week sales. Why would an sales laggard make such an unprecedented anti-consumer move when the industry leader, Nintendo, isn't?
This goes along with other moves we've seen lately from both Sony and Microsoft, including the standardization of the $70 price tag for first-party titles and also, more pointedly, the decision on the part of both to move away from system exclusives seemingly altogether and go multi-platform with their first-party software; to publish all their first-party titles both on their consoles, but also for home computers, thus removing much of the traditional incentive to buy their consoles. And it also goes along with the pre-release the fact that both companies have shifted their focus this console generation toward specifically and exclusively appealing to what the CEO of Sony called "hardcore gamers who obsess over the latest features". Both companies have launched bigger systems this generation that take up more space than their predecessors to make development more convenient for those working under third-party publishers and Microsoft in particular has stripped away multimedia features common in earlier Xbox systems that were intended to draw in newer and more casual players. In a similar vein, Sony has recently decided to close their founding Japan Studio altogether and smaller, more independent developers have complained about experiencing an unwelcoming climate when dealing with Sony of late. These companies also describe Nintendo as not being a competitor of theirs, suggesting that Nintendo's Switch systems appeal mainly to much younger and less dedicated players. They're competing for a different market.
Taking first-party libraries multi-platform, abandoning multimedia features, raising the price of both systems and games, making them bigger and less convenient to store, sometimes closing off smaller devs and publishers...it all adds up to a view that says hardcore gaming is a niche market that's not growing anymore and is indeed moving toward the home computer space and away from consoles over time. Some have argued, with some credulity IMO, that computer gaming is the future the hardcore gaming market. (Example.) These arguments are helped, I think, by the heavy dominance of the console market by Nintendo's relatively casual Switch system that's designed more for convenience, affordability, and a more family-friendly, social play-oriented image than raw performance.
Between the 3DS, the Wii, and the Switch, it's easy to see that Nintendo does well when they focus more on the casual market and (as testified to by examples like the GameCube and the Wii U) quite poorly when they try to compete in the hardcore gaming market. That's because the casual market is several times larger and they've got a virtual monopoly on it in the console arena. Their rivals have historically sought to reach the more casual market with multimedia implements (movie players, CD players, TV viewing features, frills like this), but Nintendo has, by contrast, focused their appeal to more casual gamers on making actual gaming itself more convenient and affordable (as with the that one can play the Switch both on their TV and portably as well; hence the title). This seems to have proven more of a winning formula in the long run. Their rivals have given up appealing to the casual market and now find that the hardcore market, conversely, is moving toward the complexity of home computers, so they're focusing less on their systems in general.
I guess what I'm asking here is like...will there still be gaming consoles in another 10 or 15 years? Will there be a PlayStation 6 or 7 or will Nintendo cement a monopoly on console gaming through its domination of the casual market?