American buyers may end up facing a price tag that would already be unaffordable for a much wider audience. Grand Theft Auto VI could therefore become not only a major game launch, but also a stress test for the console market.

There is no doubt that Grand Theft Auto VI will attract a massive audience when it launches on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series. However, according to Circana analyst Matt Piscatella, many casual players may be in for an unpleasant surprise if they buy one of the consoles alongside the game. Grand Theft Auto V has sold 225 million copies to date, while the combined user base of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series is expected to be around 123-126 million, including 93 million PlayStation 5 users. This means that a significant number of casual players are waiting for Grand Theft Auto VI to arrive on current-gen consoles, and they could be discouraged if another price increase happens because of the current economic situation and memory shortages.

Speaking about the latest PlayStation 5 price increase, which raised the base model with a Blu-ray drive to $650, Piscatella said it had an immediate impact on demand for PlayStation 5 hardware, though he admitted that this could simply represent demand being pulled forward. The analyst then noted that the margins on the hardware are still not huge, even though the consoles are no longer being sold at a loss.

“Those folks who don’t pay much attention have heard that Grand Theft Auto VI is coming, but they’re not really paying attention. That’s a lot of people, you know: Oh, Grand Theft Auto VI is coming out in November. They show up, see that it’s finally out, and decide to buy a $1,000 console. There’s going to be a lot of price shock. Yeah, I said $1,000 because I’ve already assumed there will be more price increases. I hope we don’t. I’m not saying we will, but it’s possible.

Now, well over half of video game hardware buyers have a household income of over $100,000. The average price of hardware has increased from around $250 in 2019 to over $500 just a few years later. The dynamics of the console market have changed dramatically in recent years. It’s no longer a mass-market video game device. It’s a device targeted to high-income households. It’s a whole different economic picture,” Piscatella told The Game Business.

Consoles were originally designed specifically as affordable gaming devices, but recent price increases are quickly pushing them out of that consumer segment. Piscatella also highlights an even bigger potential problem facing PlayStation 6 and Xbox Project Helix: if they really cost $1,000 or even $1,200, their user base will shrink dramatically, and recouping AAA development costs will become impossible unless those games are multiplatform titles…

Source: WCCFTech