The Thursday letters page thinks AI could end up increasing the cost of gaming hardware, as one reader looks back at the Switch 2’s first year.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

The final two
Everyone thought we’d had the last showcases of the year, but we still haven’t a Nintendo Direct for Metroid Prime 4, which I can’t believe we won’t have if they did two for Kirby Air Riders. That’s out in two weeks though, so they’re cutting it a bit fine.

On top of that we’ve got this Xbox Partner Preview which will apparently have 007: First Light, Tides Of Annihilation, and Reanimal. I don’t know if they’re meant to be the headliners or the only things that have leaked but… what if Valve also used it to announce Half-Life 3?

I know Microsoft and Valve are usually enemies, but If I was Microsoft I would’ve tried to patch that relationship and offering them some free marketing for their new game and hardware seems like a pretty good peace offering to me.

I think Half-Life 3 is going to be like Silksong now though, where people hope for it at every showcase and it never turns up. Although at least we knew Silksong actually existed.
Bosley

First year jitters
There’s no way I’m buying Kirby Air Riders to find out for myself but I cannot believe, after having played the demo at the weekend, that the game is really worth all the 8/10, and even some 9/10, scores that other sites are given it. There’s a lot of 6s and 7s, so the Metacritic is at 78 as I write this but after what I’ve seen and know of it I’m far more inclined to believe GC’s review than anyone else’s.

I don’t know why it’s being scored so well, when everyone seemed so unanimous that the original game was bad, but I wonder if it’s just because in this era people just aren’t used to marking Nintendo down. Or are worried about upsetting them or something.

Nintendo has always made bad games but they’ve always been smaller games that are quickly forgotten. Although Kirby Air Riders and Hyrule Warriors are relatively big games I still think they fit this mould, and that Drag x Drive and Welcome Tour definitely do.

It is worrying that the Switch 2 line-up has been so inconsistent, given how long Nintendo had to get it ready, but we’ll see what happens next year. I’m not prepared to say they’ve lost it yet, especially not after the quality of Donkey Kong Bananza.
Sabretooth

Everything to lose
Interesting to see Battlefield 6 go free-to-play for a week. The obvious question is whether EA would go further and make it free permanently, but I can’t see them being able to do that without upsetting everyone that has paid full whack for it so far – or giving them a refund, which seems even less likely.

They’ve definitely got the upper hand with Call Of Duty at the moment but knowing EA’s greed they’ll mess it up somehow, probably via microtransactions or going back on their word about silly skins. I don’t hear much word on Redsec though, so I’m not sure if that’s done as well? Might be that only Battlefield 6 itself is the hit.
Sanger

GC: It’s impossible to tell exactly how well Redsec is doing as it’s not tracked separately by Steam Charts.

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Reaching the limit
I do believe it’s still worth getting a PlayStation 5 and, dare I say it, a PS5 Pro. They say that the PlayStation 6 might of been pushed back at least another year, maybe to 2028. If that’s the case you’re going to have a good few years with it before the PlayStation 6 comes out. Even the PS5 Pro looks like it’s a bit of a bargain, taking into account what Xbox have been saying about their new one costing as much as £1,000. And now Black Friday is on you can save a bit of cash on them as well.

Every console Sony has brought out I’ve had since the PlayStation 2, including the Pro versions. With the reports that the PlayStation 6 is going to be close to Xbox prices I think this gen is my last gen with consoles. Going up to as much as £1,000 and developers praying GTA 6 will push games up to £100… for me it’s getting to a point where gaming will be for the rich. And with Nintendo software and hardware getting to those price levels as well I think it’s time to call it a day and just remember the good old days of being a gamer.
David

GC: Microsoft has never said anything about a specific price, £1,000 was just a rumour.

PlayStation Portal – a next gen console? (Sony)

Streaming Premium
I’ve been successfully streaming a lot of games using PS Plus Premium and have found it to be pretty good, even when playing action games and the like. My internet isn’t even that fast, at around 30 megs.

It got me thinking, though, that should Sony release a PlayStation 6, then it would technically be possible to stream PlayStation 6 games onto a PlayStation 5 and also a Portal. I’m not sure if Sony would go down that route, as they would want people to buy a new console, except maybe by adding an additional, more expensive tier to the subscription. I do prefer owning games myself, but just a thought.
Mud

GC: We suspect you’re right to at least some degree. Sony are reported to be making a new portable but there’s no way it’ll be able to run PlayStation 6 games natively and even PlayStation 5 will be a push. Streaming them does make sense, but we suspect Sony will limit that to its own hardware, likely including Portal.

Expensive machinery
So I’m seeing more talk about the Steam Machine being super expensive, and probably at least around $1,000. Which makes sense really, if they’re talking about it being multiple times more powerful than the Steam Deck.

I don’t think the Steam Machine is going to be any kind of rival to PlayStation 5. It might do better than the first ones, but I doubt if it’ll even trouble the Xbox in terms of sales. I’m not criticising necessarily, but I just don’t think Valve are even interested in being a mass market hardware maker or they would’ve put more effort into pushing the Steam Deck.

I think the truth is that the future for consoles is just PlayStation and Nintendo. Whatever Xbox reveals next is blatantly going to be a PC in a box, just like the Steam Machine, and it’s also going to be super expensive as well.

Maybe in the end consoles will just go away, as Sony begins to release games day and date on PC and even Nintendo gives up and goes multiformat, but I can’t see it happening for at least a generation or two.

It will be a slow evolution if it does happen, not sudden change because Valve or whoever released a console. Sony does need a direct competitor, in my opinion, but I don’t think Xbox or Valve are up to the job.
Jabberwocky

Still trying
I’d forgotten that Meta was still throwing money at VR, even though it’s super obvious it’s never going to catch on in a big way. Not when it’s still an expensive novelty filled with compromises. That Deadpool game sounds like it had a huge budget but how many people are ever going to buy it as a Meta Quest exclusive?

I might agree that console exclusives are very important but there’s a limit to how much effect they can have on something like a VR headset. I can’t imagine any game would ever convince me to buy one, unless the tech worked in a completely different way.
Fomin

Skynet strikes again
Whether Dondanon should wait for a PlayStation 6 is of course entirely subjective, but one thing to bear in mind, especially if the PlayStation 5 is getting a significant black Friday deal, is that the next generation of consoles is, in my opinion, likely to see a fair bit of a jump in price. And quite possibly a delay.

Why do I say this? Because, thanks to AI datacentres the demand for the things consoles are made of, especially RAM, is exceptionally high, way beyond what the manufacturers can currently make. So, following a few years of GPU price hikes, that finally seemed to be calming down, we have now entered a period of RAM price hikes. It’s more than doubled in the past couple of months.

The rumoured Nvidia 5000 Super series cards have allegedly been delayed due to lack of RAM availability, and also potentially will cost more if and when they do arrive.

OK, the Super series stuff is all press speculation but so is a lot of the PlayStation 6 talk.

Anyway, maybe it will all be a flash in the pan, but I’ve got a feeling that AI is about to impact our hobby and not just in developers losing their jobs, but in the actual cost of the equipment needed to enjoy it too.

Sorry for the doom and gloom!
The Dude Abides

GC: You make a good point.

Inbox also-rans
If Kirby Air Riders was a bribe to make more Super Smash Bros. couldn’t they have just… given the guy a ton of cash? That seems like it would’ve been a lot simpler for everyone involved.
Cordon

If I had a kid I wouldn’t let them within a million miles of Roblox. I guess it’s just too convenient a babysitter for some parents though.
Focus

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