And budgets are still getting higher and higher for each gen despite everyone saying
Because the competition for your $60 is getting higher and higher.
What's being argued for here by some is that platform holders should put a cap on that competition with hardware.
If you are a consumer, why
not wish for more competition for your dollar? I know a lot of people think that pubs will run themselves into the ground but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they
might retune their investments and find a better center of gravity if they don't work out. If company A cannot compete at the high end anymore it's because other companies
can. If other companies can't, the high end will recenter at another point. But should hardware make that call? IMO, no.
It's the job of the platform holder to put as much capability at the disposal of creators, and make it as easy as possible to access. Not to tell the children to play nicely with a big stick of reduced capability. The only reason Nintendo was trying to do that is because
they didn't want that competition for themselves.
I think that that kind of competition is only relevant at the blockbuster end of the market anyway. For everyone else, they'll actually lower their costs with better hardware. The devs making $5 and $6 games on the digital market will be able to do a lot more at the same cost with better boxes.