Games are getting more expensive. Console prices are going nuts; the Playstation 2 launched at $299 USD. Wages have been stagnant longer than I've been alive. More and more people are struggling to make ends meet let alone buy luxuries like video games, particularly the young because of our kleptogeriocracy. Younger folks often use video games as a hangout spot, because young folks hanging out together in public is a felony now. So they play the same few games for tens of thousands of hours. Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, I think the crowd that spend their adolescences in Garrysmod are in the attrition phase. You've already got a copy of these games, why buy another? A lot of studios are being closed because business major's gonna business. Fuck brand recognition or loyalty, fuck development talent, fuck community building, fuck long-term strategy, we can realize a gain right now by sowing half the planet with salt, so that's what we're going to do. So what is there for people to buy? That noise you heard last week was Xbox's death rattle. One out of the three mainstream home console platforms is an outright stupid idea to buy now.

I'm just done with Capitalism in general. I got 1000 games, 200 of which are GOG offline installers. Those are burned onto M-Disc storage for the apocalypse. Cancelled all TV streaming, no buying games or books even. Nothing but food and bills now as I wait for it all to collapse.

If I understand the situation, they're rebranding an Asus ROG handheld, which I imagine isn't going to outsell the Steam Deck or whatever the thing Lenovo is shipping with both Windows or SteamOS on, because they're late to the game and they'll fuck it up somehow, and I give 50/50 odds that there will be an announcement that they're cancelling the next home console launch.

I hear about these cases of inflation, like the fact a pack of gum cost 15 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, or immediately after WWII the German...reichmarke or whatever they called it, was so worthless it took a wheelbarrow full to buy a loaf of bread. Where do I get a wheelbarrow full of uselessly inflated USD? *It's not actually inflation, is it?*

That’s not the next Xbox I mean, but it’s a glimpse at it. It’s clear that the direction this is going is that Xbox is going to be a Steam competitor. The next Xbox console will be a prebuilt PC. A literal prebuilt PC running windows that can play Steam, PC games and Gamepass at current Series X quality or a little bit better priced somewhere between $700 to $900. Maybe a Series S type performance for $400-500. Build me a PC with similar performance at that price. You can’t. I’m not saying there’s no pitfalls, but if they pull it off they will sell these things like crazy.

I could probably build a gaming PC that matches the Series S for $500 with an AMD APU, some Ryzen thing with integrated graphics, no discrete GPU. The Steam Deck makes it work in a handheld format, I can do it in a PC case. Or, go buy used. There's gonna be a lot of perfectly game capable machines being sold off because they won't run Win 11. Slap Linux + Steam on there and you're gaming.

Inflation, yeah. The thing that has absolutely never been applied to wages?

Ok, so you think the mass market likes buying used stuff? Because as far as I’m aware the average consumer would rather buy a new lower end device than a used higher end device. But yes the next Xbox has already been teased as running an AMD custom made chip, so you get where they are coming from.

You would have to weigh disk rot vs hard disk mechanical component failure.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with shitty half baked $70 games

Single data point: my young, working, well off gaming part of my family is just out of energy. It's easier to watch a YouTube video instead of TV or gaming, before then falling asleep to wake up for work. Seems like much of their circle is similar. As for myself, I'm going through a, uh, icky phase of life and am not really motivated to play unless it's coop. ...Maybe others are struggling similarly? *** Also, the games we *do* look at tend to be from indie to mid-size studios, with BG3 and KCD2 being the only recent exceptions.

Don't forget all the online requirements with accounts even if you want to play single player, and constant server issues on launch that seem to happen with every game now because none of them allow community servers anymore.

> I got 1000 games, 200 of which are GOG offline installers. > Nothing but food and bills now as I wait for it all to collapse. While I'll believe that you have solid storage longevity, prepping for societal collapse by archiving 1000 video games seems kind of unorthodox.