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Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

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Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#101
post #98
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You made claims, it’s your job to provide evidence. And you already contradict yourself - per your message she was 2 years at ms, and then 4 years at startup. Honestly, I hate defending multimillionaire and get that to climb that fast at those companies anybody needs to be, most likely, ruthless corporate warrior. But you just throw claims and sound like a baseless hater.

Both the fact she spent 2 years at MS as a Marketing employee out of college and 4 years after she left MS she was VP at Facebook are true simultaneously, check the Wikipedia link I sourced.

Agree. My mistake on that part, misread your message.

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#102
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they've been explaining away inflation for decades by averaging housing with electronics. Yes your rent has tripled, but your TV is also 3 times as big and your gamebox has 1000 times the CPU so really, things have only gotten 2% more expensive, says the CPI calculation. Now the politicians don't even have that excuse. I suppose they'll have to add AI tokens to CPI. Used to cost $1000 each, now $0.000002 each,…

There is a limit on production efficiency, life is full of logistic curves which feel exponential at first until the inflection and leveling off phases. It's going to hurt when agriculture does not see the efficiency gains it has been receiving for the last century or so. We might be at the inflection or leveling off now.

> It's going to hurt when agriculture does not see the efficiency gains it has been receiving for the last century or so.

Could go either way. Advanced robotics + AI could finally break more agriculture free from the "tied to people's time" limitation. Or all the growable land could be in use, so that simply decreases prices a bit.

Expect world population leveling off will be the biggest determinant.

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the increase in prices is not tied to M2 in this case. It's clearly a matter of supply not matching demand, as a result of changes in priorities of computing equipment manufacturers. You don't have to look at M2 to understand that Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix deprioritising DDR memory over HBM for AI data centres has led to the rapid increase in prices for consumer-grade RAM.

Margins for consumer were wider vs HBM before killing Crucial, and still is today. Something else is going on...

It's not just to do with profit, there are other factors involved. For example, AI companies placing large orders is good for RAM manufacturers as it's easier to plan production schedules. The RAM industry is fairly volatile in terms of it being hard to predict demand. That's just one additional factor, there are others.

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#104
post #25
post #5

The deal was they took everything from you… but at least you could buy electronics for cheap! Now they don’t even let you have that.

Yeah, they've been explaining away inflation for decades by averaging housing with electronics. Yes your rent has tripled, but your TV is also 3 times as big and your gamebox has 1000 times the CPU so really, things have only gotten 2% more expensive, says the CPI calculation. Now the politicians don't even have that excuse. I suppose they'll have to add AI tokens to CPI. Used to cost $1000 each, now $0.000002 each,…

With regards to inflation, there is evidence central bankers were simply lucky over the last forty years, provided a global demographic dividend leading to disinflation that has now ended. They may not be sufficiently equipped to manage inflation in such a novel forward looking macro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ISaLwzm4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nvsDmwZWdM?t=1786

https://www.suerf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/f_fa99ccdbe...

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#105
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of gamers don't care. PC has been digital only for decades.

There are a few points to raise here. Firstly, yes PC is mostly digital only, but there is at least competition between PC gaming marketplaces, which helps to restrict anti-consumer practices like deleting content that gamers have paid for. Secondly, some of the competitors in the PC gaming space allow for physical backups of installation media, which helps with game preservation. For example, if a game is bought on…

I agree with all of those points. The market unfortunately doesn't. Physical sales constitute only a quarter on the PlayStation platform (even less according to Sony). Most if not all of the top 10 games by player count are online only anyway.

If Sony does go all digital with the PS6 they'll only lose a small fraction of loyal gamers and they just don't give a fuck.

Piracy on the PlayStation? Also not gonna happen. At least not for online games and that's where the money is.

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#106
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few points to raise here. Firstly, yes PC is mostly digital only, but there is at least competition between PC gaming marketplaces, which helps to restrict anti-consumer practices like deleting content that gamers have paid for. Secondly, some of the competitors in the PC gaming space allow for physical backups of installation media, which helps with game preservation. For example, if a game is bought on…

I agree with all of those points. The market unfortunately doesn't. Physical sales constitute only a quarter on the PlayStation platform (even less according to Sony). Most if not all of the top 10 games by player count are online only anyway. If Sony does go all digital with the PS6 they'll only lose a small fraction of loyal gamers and they just don't give a fuck. Piracy on the PlayStation? Also not gonna happen. A…

> Piracy on the PlayStation? Also not gonna happen.

Piracy has a long history on the PlayStation, going all the way back to the PS1. Every PlayStation (home console and handheld) has had a mod/homebrew scene, including plenty of access to pirated games. I don't see why the PS6 would be any different, regardless of whether the games are distributed digitally or not. The only difference is that more people will be drawn to it if the prices of games are kept high through no second hand market.

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#107
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a limit on production efficiency, life is full of logistic curves which feel exponential at first until the inflection and leveling off phases. It's going to hurt when agriculture does not see the efficiency gains it has been receiving for the last century or so. We might be at the inflection or leveling off now.

> It's going to hurt when agriculture does not see the efficiency gains it has been receiving for the last century or so. Could go either way. Advanced robotics + AI could finally break more agriculture free from the "tied to people's time" limitation. Or all the growable land could be in use, so that simply decreases prices a bit. Expect world population leveling off will be the biggest determinant.

People's time isn't a significant restriction on agriculture. It used to be, but now it's all giant corporate robotic industrial processes and the bottleneck is on land.

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be delusional if you think you are in that class that can spin up an xbox competitor

Didn't Nex Playground pretty much just do that? I saw them on display last time I went to Costco, and they apparently outsold Xbox during last year's Black Friday sales.

This is super cool, didn't see this before. Not 100% sure how much this applies but maybe I'm wrong

Re: Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%

#109
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's going to hurt when agriculture does not see the efficiency gains it has been receiving for the last century or so. Could go either way. Advanced robotics + AI could finally break more agriculture free from the "tied to people's time" limitation. Or all the growable land could be in use, so that simply decreases prices a bit. Expect world population leveling off will be the biggest determinant.

People's time isn't a significant restriction on agriculture. It used to be, but now it's all giant corporate robotic industrial processes and the bottleneck is on land.

Not in the sense that there aren't enough people to work, because there are, but because there isn't enough human labor willing to work at economically sustainable prices.

There are categories of foods (e.g. many vegetables) that aren't economical to grow because they (1) require manual labor and (2) the price of that manual labor must compete against alternatives (soybeans) that require less.

If robotics + AI provides working people-less solutions, then suddenly those crops become economically viable to grow again, which also opens up the land that might be unsuited for heavy-mechanized farming (flat, rectangular).

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