Slashdot Mirror
Large Publishers Pointing to High Prices
Despite Mark Rein's recent statements to the contrary, GamesIndustry.biz has word that Activision, THQ, and Take Two are all indicating that they may be charging $59.99 for next gen titles. From the article: "This strategy is likely to see a two-tier structure emerging for game pricing, where premium titles command a premium price point of $59.99 or more, while less important games are sold for between $39.99 and $49.99 - much closer to the current price point."
Price fixing.
Costs of distribution are far lower today than they were maybe 10 years ago, and systems like steam and perhaps bittorrent mean its possible to launch a game on very little revenue - these consoles have broadband adaptors after all. Why the price hike?
Well the fact that three publishers have announced it at the same time makes me wonder if there is something dodgy here.
Any refutements or evidence in this one?
Can't see it turning out well though: Nintendo were previously thrashed on price for the N64, and they were only able to return to somewhere close to their previous revenue by producing an incredibly cheap console.
Joseph Farthing
http://josephfarthing.com
Aren't game sales what we were discussing? Aren't the console statistics a little slanted since each has been in the market for different amounts of time?
I've honestly been having a hard time finding satisfactory data for this.. I do see that many of the all-time-sellers aren't necessarily modern-generation-games, but what I'd really like to see is the AVERAGE number of sales for a game on each console. Plus I'd like to see a cost-breakdown for then and now. I fully concede that development costs are higher now, but material and distribution costs are much lower, sales (as near as i can figure) much higher. I'm not sure just what those vectors would add up to.