A $1,000 Console? Analyst Warns Sony and Microsoft Could Lose Nearly 40% of Next-Gen Sales
If Sony and Microsoft ship their next-generation consoles in 2028 at US$1,000 each, nearly four in ten players who would have bought one may simply sit out the generation. That is the headline finding from a new report by Ampere Analysis, the games-market research firm, which models a scenario where the PlayStation 6 and Microsoft's Project Helix arrive with conventional designs, incremental graphical improvements, and a four-figure price tag. Combined sales of the two consoles over their first five years could fall by up to 38% compared with the same window for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, according to the forecast (VGC, 19 August 2026).
The ripple effect would extend well beyond hardware. Ampere estimates that by 2031 the combined PlayStation and Xbox market for games and services — the digital storefronts, subscriptions and add-on content that generate most platform revenue — would be US$3.4 billion, or 12%, smaller than if the consoles launched at US$700 instead.
The warning lands against a real trend of rising hardware costs. A continued global shortage of electronic components, compounded by trade disputes, has pushed prices of PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo hardware steadily upward. The PlayStation 5 Pro, which launched at US$700, has already risen to US$900. If that trajectory continues, a US$1,000 next-generation console is not a thought experiment — it is a plausible price point.
Ampere outlines three strategies the platform holders could take to avoid it. The first is simply to wait: delay the launch beyond late 2028 and extend the current generation while component costs come down. The second is to hit the 2028 window but cut prices through heavier hardware subsidies — the platform holder absorbing part of the cost to lower the shelf price — alongside new monetisation models, more aggressive digital content strategies and optimised sales channels. The third is to rethink the hardware itself: innovate on what the device does and how it is used, de-emphasising raw graphical power, in the way Nintendo did with the Wii — a console that sold on a new way to play rather than on visual fidelity.
Microsoft has already signalled which direction it favours. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has hinted at new business models aimed at making Project Helix affordable for more players, and Xbox has indicated it will pursue the second and third of Ampere's suggested approaches — hitting the 2028 window with subsidised pricing and hardware innovation rather than waiting it out (VGC, 19 August 2026).
For context on where each platform stands today, Ampere's earlier forecasts — published in July 2026 — project Xbox Series X and S sales to fall to 2.5 million units in 2026, followed by a rapid wind-down as the generation nears its end. The same forecast puts PlayStation 6 sales at 17.2 million units (Pure Xbox, 14 July 2026). Sony has not publicly commented on pricing or design philosophy for the PS6.
What makes the report striking is how directly it frames the trade-off facing both companies. A conventionally more powerful console at a premium price is the safe engineering choice — but it is also the one that could shrink the audience that buys into the next generation at all. The decisions Sony and Microsoft make over the next two years about chips, form factors and pricing models will shape not just how many units sell, but how large the player base for an entire generation turns out to be.
