6 ms·

"killed" is a bit of a stretch. High prices on all gear is here to stay. This is the new normal. Unless that simply means that nobody buys consoles/pc's. But

"killed" is a bit of a stretch. High prices on all gear is here to stay. This is the new normal. Unless that simply means that nobody buys consoles/pc's. But you cant compare the price point with what it used to cost and imagine that its overpriced now and that people will seek alternatives. There aren't any cheaper alternatives.

zamadatix 3mo ago
It doesn't have to be everybody or nobody, it can be as simple as "a lot of people buy lower end gaming equipment instead".
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
eudamoniac 3mo ago
There is no guarantee that these prices are here to stay...
- rootnod3 3mo ago
  You really think the manufacturers or retailers will lower the prices now that people are used to the new normal? How often do you see that happen?
  - choilive 3mo ago
    Yes. Absolutely. They will move more units and make more profit overall, and if they don't do it a competitor will.
  - sarchertech 3mo ago
    Look at TV prices over the last 20 years.
    - c0rruptbytes 3mo ago
      TV is heavily subsidized from data collection and ads, not sure it's a perfect comparison
      - zamadatix 3mo ago
        Prices have fallen far more than profit from data sale provides, so it's easy to view as a good enough comparison.
        girvo 3mo ago
        Do we have data on that either way? I’m genuinely asking, not snarking: I tried to look it up a while ago but couldn’t find as much as I hoped
        sarchertech 3mo ago
        I don’t have data for how much tvs are currently subsidized. But you can just look at the inflation adjusted price of TVs from say 1980 to 2010 and see the drop without worrying about adjusting for advertising and spyware subsidies. You can also look at computer monitors (which don’t have advertising and spyware) and see an enormous price drop. Edit: I found this which estimates you can make about $100 in ads and data collection over the lifetime of a TV https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-industry-will-adsupported-business-models-drive-free-tvs-in-2023 https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-indu...
      - nl 3mo ago
        People keep claiming this but it isn't true. The subsidy from advertising is very low: > They make about $20 per user annually and, assuming an active TV service life of five years, yield about $100 over the lifecycle of a main viewing room TV. https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-industry-will-adsupported-business-models-drive-free-tvs-in-2023 https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-indu... Look at monitor price drops (comparing the same tech). Same price drop curve.
    - 3mo ago
  - timpera 3mo ago
    It happens all the time. For a recent example, see Windows midrange laptop pricing since the MacBook Neo was introduced, despite the RAM crisis.
  - ssl-3 3mo ago
    Yes, I really do think that. Suppose you have a warehouse full of widgets. You bought them them for $450 each, and sell them for $500. You're really happy with this profit, and you can just keep selling them at $500...forever, right? But then, I get my own warehouse and fill it with widgets that I bought at $400 each because I entered under better market conditions. And I really want to sell these widgets -- they aren't making me any money when they just sit there taking up space and burning rent. So I price these widgets at $475, to attract customers. It works; the widgets are flying off the shelves. And they're being purchased by people who used to be your customers, and I'm making even more money per-unit than you are. What's your next move? Do you want to keep losing customers to me, or do you want to adjust your price to be more competitive?
    - thewebguyd 3mo ago
      Price wars are a race to the bottom that everyone loses. In reality, such oligopolies follow a kinked demand curve. A new entrant isn't guaranteed to now price at $475. They'll see the incumbent being successful at $500. Now they price at $499 rather than trigger a destructive price war. Companies collude on this quite frequently. When everyone keeps their prices high, all get to enjoy the big margins. Outside of that, ok so you have a warehouse full of widgets you need to move fast. So you undercut, and sell out. If demand is still bigger than your supply, you're now out of capacity, customers are going back to buying for $500 from your competitor. That means you've mispriced your limited inventory, so now you raise your prices up to closer to $500 because it helps you control your capacity, and also you know the market can clearly bear it. Anyway, those are obviously overly simplified scenarios prices rarely fall down dramatically because of tacit collusion. Its asymmetric price transmission ("Prices go up like rockets, but fall like feathers")
      - maxglute 3mo ago
        Some lose more, i.e. PRC manufacturers well incentivized to involute to drive competitors out of business. $500 for 10% marketshare is less than 100$ for 60%. Of course PRC being spoiler, at least under current geopolitics where they have less reason to align with existing memory cartel.
  - NBJack 3mo ago
    SSD prices in 2018. GPU prices after the first crypto crash in 2018 and again after the Ethereum merge in 2022. The AMD Zen disruption of 2017. Retailers are mostly free to offer things at whatever prices they want. But the market has more power than you may think to correct it.
- thewebguyd 3mo ago
  It almost certainly is. Once people get used to the higher prices, and the companies see that the units sell anyway, there is no meaningful incentive to lower costs again. This has played out time and time again during every other supply-side shock. Once prices go up, they don't come back down.
  - bigstrat2003 3mo ago
    That's not true. We've seen prices from supply shock go back down (the increase in hard drive prices when there were floods in Asia 10-15 years ago comes to mind as an example). It does take a while, but it will happen eventually.
    - thewebguyd 3mo ago
      Even then, prices stayed elevated for years. They never went back to pre-supply shock prices. Right around that time too the industry consolidated. WD bought Hitachi, Seagate bought Samsung's HDD business. It left a duopoly, so now there was no competitive pressure for a price war. Prices got locked in higher than pre-flood levels, intentionally. For the current DRAM situation, I can almost promise we'll never see $60-$90 RAM again. Maybe, 32GB won't cost you $500 eventually, but it'll cost you $250-$350 instead of $500. If the market can bear it, why would anyone get into a price war that's just a race to the bottom where no one wins?
      - aaronblohowiak 3mo ago
        China
      - bryik 3mo ago
        > They never went back to pre-supply shock prices. What do you mean? 2011: 2 TB HDD for $79.99 ($0.0000400 / MB). 2012: 2 TB HDD for $157.27 ($0.0000786 / MB). 2014: 4 TB HDD for $109 ($0.0000367 / MB) 2024: 8 TB HDD for $111.98 ($0.0000140 / MB) https://web.archive.org/web/20250318110739/http://jcmit.net/diskprice.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20250318110739/http://jcmit.net/... https://www.thecpuguide.com/pc/disk-price-history-hdd-ssd-price-tracker/ https://www.thecpuguide.com/pc/disk-price-history-hdd-ssd-pr...
- tdhz77 3mo ago
  You have evidence that they are going to go down? Not unless government policy steps in to pressure chip makers, or establish new markets. Corporations will use inflation, ai, et al to validate their record profits at the cost of the consumer. Monopolies or better put the mergers of companies over the last 40 years hasn’t lead to cheaper prices, it never was going to either. Prices will continue to go up.
  - IsTom 3mo ago
    If it goes on long enough new manufacturers will eventually spin up and sell RAM cheaper.
  - ChadNauseam 3mo ago
    Can you point to an example of this happening in the past? Where a supply shortage leads to price increases and "record profits", and the price never goes back down?
    - girvo 3mo ago
      GPUs? Though that’s kind of cheating considering it’s basically a monopoly at this point
  - drstewart 3mo ago
    >Monopolies or better put the mergers of companies over the last 40 years hasn’t lead to cheaper prices, Can you explain this chart? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-computer-memory-and-storage https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-comput...
    - tdhz77 3mo ago
      Good point. But only a few companies create these things. They can jack up the price and there is nothing we can do. Is there a mom and pop shop making memory yet? Nope, centralized power of commerce is a threat.
      - 3mo ago

zamadatix 3mo ago

It doesn't have to be everybody or nobody, it can be as simple as "a lot of people buy lower end gaming equipment instead".

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

eudamoniac 3mo ago

There is no guarantee that these prices are here to stay...

rootnod3 3mo ago
You really think the manufacturers or retailers will lower the prices now that people are used to the new normal? How often do you see that happen?
- choilive 3mo ago
  Yes. Absolutely. They will move more units and make more profit overall, and if they don't do it a competitor will.
- sarchertech 3mo ago
  Look at TV prices over the last 20 years.
  - c0rruptbytes 3mo ago
    TV is heavily subsidized from data collection and ads, not sure it's a perfect comparison
    - zamadatix 3mo ago
      Prices have fallen far more than profit from data sale provides, so it's easy to view as a good enough comparison.
      - girvo 3mo ago
        Do we have data on that either way? I’m genuinely asking, not snarking: I tried to look it up a while ago but couldn’t find as much as I hoped
        sarchertech 3mo ago
        I don’t have data for how much tvs are currently subsidized. But you can just look at the inflation adjusted price of TVs from say 1980 to 2010 and see the drop without worrying about adjusting for advertising and spyware subsidies. You can also look at computer monitors (which don’t have advertising and spyware) and see an enormous price drop. Edit: I found this which estimates you can make about $100 in ads and data collection over the lifetime of a TV https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-industry-will-adsupported-business-models-drive-free-tvs-in-2023 https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-indu...
    - nl 3mo ago
      People keep claiming this but it isn't true. The subsidy from advertising is very low: > They make about $20 per user annually and, assuming an active TV service life of five years, yield about $100 over the lifecycle of a main viewing room TV. https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-industry-will-adsupported-business-models-drive-free-tvs-in-2023 https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om030986/in-the-smart-tv-indu... Look at monitor price drops (comparing the same tech). Same price drop curve.
  - 3mo ago
- timpera 3mo ago
  It happens all the time. For a recent example, see Windows midrange laptop pricing since the MacBook Neo was introduced, despite the RAM crisis.
- ssl-3 3mo ago
  Yes, I really do think that. Suppose you have a warehouse full of widgets. You bought them them for $450 each, and sell them for $500. You're really happy with this profit, and you can just keep selling them at $500...forever, right? But then, I get my own warehouse and fill it with widgets that I bought at $400 each because I entered under better market conditions. And I really want to sell these widgets -- they aren't making me any money when they just sit there taking up space and burning rent. So I price these widgets at $475, to attract customers. It works; the widgets are flying off the shelves. And they're being purchased by people who used to be your customers, and I'm making even more money per-unit than you are. What's your next move? Do you want to keep losing customers to me, or do you want to adjust your price to be more competitive?
  - thewebguyd 3mo ago
    Price wars are a race to the bottom that everyone loses. In reality, such oligopolies follow a kinked demand curve. A new entrant isn't guaranteed to now price at $475. They'll see the incumbent being successful at $500. Now they price at $499 rather than trigger a destructive price war. Companies collude on this quite frequently. When everyone keeps their prices high, all get to enjoy the big margins. Outside of that, ok so you have a warehouse full of widgets you need to move fast. So you undercut, and sell out. If demand is still bigger than your supply, you're now out of capacity, customers are going back to buying for $500 from your competitor. That means you've mispriced your limited inventory, so now you raise your prices up to closer to $500 because it helps you control your capacity, and also you know the market can clearly bear it. Anyway, those are obviously overly simplified scenarios prices rarely fall down dramatically because of tacit collusion. Its asymmetric price transmission ("Prices go up like rockets, but fall like feathers")
    - maxglute 3mo ago
      Some lose more, i.e. PRC manufacturers well incentivized to involute to drive competitors out of business. $500 for 10% marketshare is less than 100$ for 60%. Of course PRC being spoiler, at least under current geopolitics where they have less reason to align with existing memory cartel.
- NBJack 3mo ago
  SSD prices in 2018. GPU prices after the first crypto crash in 2018 and again after the Ethereum merge in 2022. The AMD Zen disruption of 2017. Retailers are mostly free to offer things at whatever prices they want. But the market has more power than you may think to correct it.
thewebguyd 3mo ago
It almost certainly is. Once people get used to the higher prices, and the companies see that the units sell anyway, there is no meaningful incentive to lower costs again. This has played out time and time again during every other supply-side shock. Once prices go up, they don't come back down.
- bigstrat2003 3mo ago
  That's not true. We've seen prices from supply shock go back down (the increase in hard drive prices when there were floods in Asia 10-15 years ago comes to mind as an example). It does take a while, but it will happen eventually.
  - thewebguyd 3mo ago
    Even then, prices stayed elevated for years. They never went back to pre-supply shock prices. Right around that time too the industry consolidated. WD bought Hitachi, Seagate bought Samsung's HDD business. It left a duopoly, so now there was no competitive pressure for a price war. Prices got locked in higher than pre-flood levels, intentionally. For the current DRAM situation, I can almost promise we'll never see $60-$90 RAM again. Maybe, 32GB won't cost you $500 eventually, but it'll cost you $250-$350 instead of $500. If the market can bear it, why would anyone get into a price war that's just a race to the bottom where no one wins?
    - aaronblohowiak 3mo ago
      China
    - bryik 3mo ago
      > They never went back to pre-supply shock prices. What do you mean? 2011: 2 TB HDD for $79.99 ($0.0000400 / MB). 2012: 2 TB HDD for $157.27 ($0.0000786 / MB). 2014: 4 TB HDD for $109 ($0.0000367 / MB) 2024: 8 TB HDD for $111.98 ($0.0000140 / MB) https://web.archive.org/web/20250318110739/http://jcmit.net/diskprice.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20250318110739/http://jcmit.net/... https://www.thecpuguide.com/pc/disk-price-history-hdd-ssd-price-tracker/ https://www.thecpuguide.com/pc/disk-price-history-hdd-ssd-pr...
tdhz77 3mo ago
You have evidence that they are going to go down? Not unless government policy steps in to pressure chip makers, or establish new markets. Corporations will use inflation, ai, et al to validate their record profits at the cost of the consumer. Monopolies or better put the mergers of companies over the last 40 years hasn’t lead to cheaper prices, it never was going to either. Prices will continue to go up.
- IsTom 3mo ago
  If it goes on long enough new manufacturers will eventually spin up and sell RAM cheaper.
- ChadNauseam 3mo ago
  Can you point to an example of this happening in the past? Where a supply shortage leads to price increases and "record profits", and the price never goes back down?
  - girvo 3mo ago
    GPUs? Though that’s kind of cheating considering it’s basically a monopoly at this point
- drstewart 3mo ago
  >Monopolies or better put the mergers of companies over the last 40 years hasn’t lead to cheaper prices, Can you explain this chart? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-computer-memory-and-storage https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-comput...
  - tdhz77 3mo ago
    Good point. But only a few companies create these things. They can jack up the price and there is nothing we can do. Is there a mom and pop shop making memory yet? Nope, centralized power of commerce is a threat.
    - 3mo ago