I think console gaming hit the top of the curve years ago. Sure profits are bigger numbers, but inflation has halved the spending power of a dollar and it’s really hard to tell what’s worth more anymore. With that kind of uncertainty, it’s hard to declare what we’re experiencing now as surprising. They have had consoles on life support for at least 20 years now. Originally you needed the console, game, and a data hookup ( phone line) at most. Now you have to buy the 3rd revision of the console, have the gold subscription, make sure you’re buying the remastered version of the game you want, have an account with the publisher, ads the whole way, do i need to go on? It’s crazy we don’t stop and look at where we have gotten. Instead we’re like, but what if we added AI to this mix, that will fix it! And the cycle continues.

Meanwhile; Valve is literally drowning in money - they have to run sales so the inflow is slower - to clear away all the money. You don’t even need a PC anymore to play. Their 300$ handheld is as powerful as a 700$ rip-off laptop from what used to be a trustworthy brand. We may live in a capitalist genocidist technological hellscape, but at least Valve never broke. I’m actually happy HL3 never came out.