Don't forget to pirate games and just pay your favorite studios directly

Ultimate was $20. Still an enormous price hike.

Most of the games I play on it are $5... I'll probably stop now too

It was $15/mo before it's first price hike, too. And before that, a lot of people were taking advantage of the Xbox Live Gold conversion deal, where folks were getting access to GamePass Ultimate for $60/year. I once spent $180 for 3 years of GamePass, and now that same amount only gets you 6 months.

It was like 15 -> 20 and now to 30. It was great at 15 because at that point 180 a year you could be sure to play 3 AAA games worth in a year. Doubling that is pretty ehhhh. You need to cycle through a ton of games to get your money worth there.

This is just the zeitgeist of 21st century capitalism. ✓ Subscriptions. Make them pay you forever. ✓ Low initial price to saturate market share and stifle competition while you operate at a loss. ✓ Drive all realistic competitors out of the market (stadia et al.) ✓ Slow user growth? Jack up prices! I'm not surprised they got out of the hardware business. Software license ~~protection~~ publishing fees are way more lucrative than hardware sales. The hardware is just there to lock people into the software.

Hell I remember when it FIRST came out and it was like $1.

The price hikes will continue. Tale as old as time.

MS is on drugs. Full lunacy.

You have a source for that claim? This says otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_5_video_games