The $500 console is dead. Not “temporarily expensive,” not “maybe next year,” but dead, and IGN’s Bo Moore spells out the chain reaction that makes a return to $500 unlikely even if everything improves.

For context, console entry prices have roughly maxed out around $500 for about 20 years. The last three console generations largely followed that script: Xbox and PlayStation machines launched in the $400-$500 range, then usually got cheaper during the generation via “Slim” variants and holiday discounts. This generation broke the pattern. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launched in 2020 at the $500 sweet spot, but they have grown more expensive since, and Moore points to multiple supply and policy shocks that kept prices locked high and never fully unwinded.

First came COVID-19 pandemic-related supply chain disruptions. Those stock shortages kept console pricing at or above MSRP for more than two years. When supply finally started to catch up with demand around three years into the cycle, it looked like the expected mid-cycle cooling might finally arrive. Then came a second shock, and it was policy, not physics. Moore writes that President Trump upended the global economy with a draconian tariff regime, prompting Sony and Microsoft to raise their prices. Even Nintendo, the “long king” of lower-performance, budget-friendly hardware, had to launch the Switch 2 at $449.

Then the plot twist turned structural: a chip shortage, specifically the memory side of it. Moore ties the crisis to a massive buildout of AI data center infrastructure, which directly caused a shortage of the memory chips used to make graphics cards, storage, and RAM. IGN has repeatedly covered this RAM crisis, Moore says, and he uses it to connect the dots between hardware price tags and component scarcity. In his telling, that’s why you now see an $899 PS5 Pro and a $749 Xbox Series X, alongside how the Steam Machine comes in at $1,049 instead of $750.

The reason this matters beyond consoles is that memory shortages have staying power and incentives follow scarcity. Moore cites Valve saying the memory crisis is “still getting worse,” and he adds that the CEO of RAM-maker Micron expects the shortage to last well into 2028. So when could prices plausibly return toward earlier norms? Moore does not see a path. He floats a rhetorical timeline where 2029 might be “then we’ll see a $500 console again,” but his answer is direct: not a chance. By then, the market will likely be discussing the PlayStation 6 and whatever Xbox’s Project Helix becomes, and even if older models get discounted, the new generation probably won’t land near the $500 launch price people have come to love.

Here is the second-order logic Moore emphasizes: even if the supply chain eventually normalizes, tariffs are rescinded for good, and the RAM crisis works itself out (with the caveat that supply may or may not catch up and that an AI bubble could burst), consumers will have adjusted. The market will have been trained to accept close to $1,000 pricing. That changes how companies price their next machines, because Sony and Microsoft will have less incentive to step back down on price once customers have demonstrated they will pay for the current reality.

Moore reinforces that “price anchoring” lesson by pointing to GPU history. In 2017 and again in 2020, cryptocurrency mining fueled GPU shortages and scalper-driven prices well above MSRP. Eventually, GPUs returned to normal stock levels. But Moore says the subsequent GPU generation still had launch prices pushed up by the inflated numbers people had grown used to paying scalpers. He argues there’s “no reason” this time will be different, even if demand doesn’t mirror previous console fervor perfectly.

Finally, Moore lands on competition and platform incentives. The question for boards and leadership teams is whether there’s any credible pressure valve that would keep next-gen console pricing from running away. He notes Sony says it doesn’t plan to subsidize the cost of the PS6. Xbox’s future is described as “murkier,” but all signs point to Project Helix being more like a PC than a traditional console, and PC graphics cards are not getting cheaper. He adds a macro tailwind for higher prices: U.S. inflation hit a 40-year record high in 2022 and has held well above normal rates since. He even provides a purchasing-power comparison: adjusted for inflation, the 60GB PS3’s $600 launch price would be close to $1,000 today. Wrap it all together and the strategic stakes become clear: the $500 console is not just a price point that rose and fell. It’s a pricing regime that may have structurally ended, reshaping what consumers expect and what companies feel able to charge.