> I don’t think gamers are as price sensitive as believed.

I think there are more or less two different useful definitions of gamers. People who do consider it a hobby, ie an area of active interest that they expect to spend considerable amounts of time, money, and attention on. And people who play games as entertainment or recreation only, but still prefer it over other consumption that could fill that time like streaming shows.

The time-use patterns might be similar (idk) but the price sensitivity may not be. If console and game prices are low enough it may be impossible to distinguish these two groups even. But at a certain point I expect them to diverge in their playing and spending habits.

Like nintendo's astounding success in the wii era was due to specifically targeting the second group. The different characteristics and pricing strategies of PC vs mobile games are a major split between them too. I think if console prices go up enough these groups will diverge even more. The less-price-sensitive "hobbyist gamers" mostly probably won't bail for another hobby, but the "entertainment gamers" certainly may; either for a different kind of gaming or for another source of recreation all together.

It’s also worth pointing out that the cost of games has been decreasing over time due to the AAA price remaining stagnant while inflation surges forward. SNES titles in the 1990ish era retailed for $60 USD, which is roughly $145 USD today.

I can remember paying $130 CAD for some SNES games back in the day. The price differed from title to title and some of them were really expensive.

Current console gamers maybe, I always cared about prices on PC, and during my PS2 days, like 90% of the games I bought were 2nd hand and no more than 20 euros, between 2001 and 2004.

Where I did spent more money was the 300 euro for PS2Linux.

My solution to this is a combination of Game Pass and only buying games on sale. If you’re patient enough there is very little reason to pay full price for games.