Mike and Alex return to the concept of “the Game Pass Effect”. Games, the argument goes, designed for consumption on a subscription service alongside dozens of others a month will need to be conformed to this mode of consumption. They will lack the grandiose worldbuilding, demanding mechanics and novel-style writing of the best the medium has to offer. They will, instead, be shallow, light-hearted, toy-like experiences designed for piecemeal engagement, likely with loot-based progression. This (evidently) detracts from the quality of a game.
For Southeast Asia, new price changes.
Prices effective starting May 1st, 2026.
Replies(1)Looks like PlayStation took a hit with Marathon and is now quietly adjusting prices worldwide to recover the losses
Lets be honest raising prices doesn't do that when no one's buying it. I imagine the profit it greater selling 10 times more at a lower price
The price increases are due to the RAM demand associated with AI and the US-Iran war. You can look to any business news website and local news to see that. Heck, even the 2026 Asus Zenbook Duo I've been eyeing has faced delays and has had a price increase of $400; that laptop has two specs. Asus is doing a staggered release with per-orders for the lower spec now and shipping in May and pre-orders for the higher spec that I'm eyeing starting in June. Basically, all computer manufactures are affected. It'll most likely start affecting smart phones too if it hasn't already. I can't remember the last time any major console maker (Nintendo, Sony, Sega, etc) increased the price of their console mid cycle outside of Microsoft just to make more profit.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.
This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.
This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.
I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet
I mean.... what?
We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.
You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.
Helix is going to be stupidly expensive
Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential
I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought
That's going to be ps6 vs Helix
It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs
Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.
Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.
The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.
Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.
Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.
The Indie Live Expo Spring 2026 Showcase happened, and the Indie Spotlight segment of the event included plenty of reveals and world premieres.
And why are we only seeing this type of article now, when this has been obvious for years?
Is it suddenly OK to kick MS now that they are on the floor?
'The Gamepass Effect' is 'The Netflix Effect' with a different name.
First they lure you in with lots of content and a cheap price, then they cheapen the content and raise the price. Some people leave, but many forget to cancel the auto-renew subscription and haven't checked in to notice it's mostly crap, old and/or filler now. It's a classic bait and switch and it relies on known human behaviours.
Sea of Thieves, Halo Infinite, Redfall - this is just how it is at MS now. They've chosen their path.
"They will, instead, be shallow, light-hearted, toy-like experiences designed for piecemeal engagement, likely with loot-based progression. This (evidently) detracts from the quality of a game."
No, they are incomplete, broken, low effort, designed to be heavily monetized, oddly with the microtransactions and storefront working flawlessly day 1 yet the games need a "roadmap" to get them to a state they should have been in at launch. But game pass (evidently) makes that ok even though outside of game pass they are still charging $70 for it.
In much the same way that low budget bad films were 'straight to video', we now have the concept of 'straight to streaming' in which we can see the same formulaic rubbish films appearing on Netflix, AppleTV etc.
Following from that, we know have 'Gamepass Day One!', which was considered a highlight of being a subscriber until it's become apparent that day one games are typically lightweight rubbish shovelware.
'Straight to Gamepass', 'Good enough for Gamepass', and now 'The Gamepass effect' describing this current mediocrity.
This isn't the "Gamepass effect". This is MS both not fully implementing while shortchanging it. "Rushing it market, fixing it later" like they've always done. Only rather than a "one time thing" like with a Windows release, its multiple thing like Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves or this game.