I remember when the ps4 came out, the controllers were $60. Why are they more expensive now?
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Submissions have to be related to games
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No excessive self-promotion
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
Sony ultimately sets the price. They were $60 at launch but most video game accessories and even games now have increased from the standard $60 people got used to to now $65 and $70. I don't have a link but I recall reading that inflation adjusted, gaming has held up very well as there were games back in the N64 era and maybe before that sold for $60-70+.
Only other thought is Sony has moved on to PS5 and they make less of the controllers which in turn makes them more expensive to produce and thus increase in cost to the end consumer. I know Xbox has done a good job making controllers from the Xbox One generation to the current gen all work very easily together. I don't think Sony has done the same thing.
Sony made some significant changes between the PS4 and PS5 controllers. I don't know the details beyond the dynamic resistance triggers, but if you buy a controller board to make your own fightstick, it'll work with everything up through PS4 and then you need an additional daughter-board to make it work with the PS5.
It does seem like these big companies know people will buy their stuff and so they set whatever price they want. Ya, I understand inflation is a big factor but I think complacency in the consumers is a bigger factor.