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MS and Nintendo Won't Go Budget
GamesIndustry.biz reports that Microsoft and Nintendo will not be following Sony into budget pricing. From the article: "Sony's initiative will inevitably force its two console rivals to fall in line sooner rather than later. With price pressure on full price titles forcing the high street to adopt aggressive tactics, older titles are looking disproportionately expensive."
XBox owners pirate all their games.
Gamecube owners get their parents to buy the games.
PC games drop much quicker, which is nice because people who want to play the game on release date get to pay a premium and the rest of us just have to wait a month or two before it drops $10-15. On the other hand, I've been waiting over six months for Resident Evil 4 to drop from $50 to $35 or $40, and it's still only down to $45.
Sony's move is definitely welcome; too bad I don't have a PS2 ;)
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Nintendo'S Budget range are all priced around 30 Euros last time i checked.,
Which looking at the exchange rate , and the average higher price of consumer electronics and software in the EU pretty much means they are about in line with Sony's new US pricing scheme.
I'm not up on the Xbox side of things but I would imagine it would be simmilar
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Microsoft and Nintendo will have to lower prices as well.
MS in particular would have had to drop prices before the X-mas purchasing season, even without pressure from Sony. With the 360 coming on, MS has to provide some incentive for consumers to continue buying games for the original Xbox.
...I really think that a "Greatest Hits" line should be done for the GBA. Not much is coming out for it anymore (other than a new Gunstar Heroes) and the DS is doing well enough on its own. Plus, a lot of the better games for the system (like the Castlevanias) are really hard to find, let alone at a price that isn't HIGHER than what they started out at. It'd definately help keep GBA system sales stable while all of those DS games come out in the fall. It'd also help just because GBA games disappear off of the store shelves so soon after release date; unless you pick up a game within 3 months of it coming out, you'll have to settle with finding a used copy somewhere.
There are a lot of "casual" gamers out there who aren't interested in the full price titles, and perhaps only have a couple. (I only have one full price PS 2 game - Gran Turismo 4) Casual gamers prefer cheaper and smaller games to pass away an hour now and then. I paid £10 ($18) for a reasonably unknown pool game which has been great fun to play.. but £30-£40 ($50-$60) for a single full price game which might suck is crazy.
/. lately talking about how "casual gaming" is becoming a massive industry of its own. Casual gamers and hardcore gamers are rarely interested in the same stuff, so why don't companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo produce games for this audience too? We'll pay $20 for simple, fun games with low production costs.. and not $60 for over-produced, multi million dollar titles. Where are the simple console games? Bring em on!
We've had lots of articles on
1. Budget Price 2. ???? 3. Profit!
Grammar Nazi
Did they saiy they were dropping prices on thier budget games to something rediculous like $34.99? Sorry, Sony, but maybe that would be news to me if it were, say, $19.99 down to $15.99 or something. 35$ is not exactly cheap.
its easier said than done mind, i know i wanted Resident Evil 4 on release, and would have paid anything up to £40 for it.
oxymoron of the day - Xbox gamer
A smarter pricing scheme, IMHO, would be $30 new, then down to $20 after a year, and $10 after three. To me, that sounds about right for proper game pricing. But that's just me, and I haven't done any real market analysis. (Then again, it seems that most game companies don't bother with market analyses anyway.) All I know is, I'd be buying new games left right and center if they were $30 brand new.
I remember when the console market crashed back in the 80s and Atari carts were a couple of bucks apiece. We amassed quite a library of decent games at those prices.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
You can buy a used copy of RE4 in great condition for $30 plus shipping. Why do you need to buy a new copy? Used computer games are typically indistinguishable from new ones.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
as to why this story is such a big deal. I've seen it on all the major game sites, and to me it doesn't even seem news worthy.
In the article the response from Microsoft and Nintendo was non-committal. A "no plans at this time" response merely means they will see if Sony's move costs them sales first.
From your post it seems that game sales in Canada may be done quite differently from the US. Here, major retailers will discount a new title $10-$15 in the first week since that is it's sales peak. Or they may choose not to lower the price but do a value added promotion such as giving away the hint book with it. Not only do they make up the difference in volume, but since they sell more than just games they can rely on other purchases as well simply because the customer is in the store. Waiting a month generally means you've missed the sale price and are paying full list price.
The original story wasn't news. Neither is this. Raise your standards a little, please. Don't just link press releases.
So the original news was that platinum titles would MSRP for $35. So what? Is this a big discount? If it is, it's more of a correction than an initiative. I can't speak for Microsoft, but Nintendo's Players' Choice line has had lower prices (if I recall, $40 or less) for years. In fact, this IGN article from nearly two years ago talks about some popular Gamecube titles being discounted to $30 and even $20.
MS and Nintendo "won't go budget?" Go look at a game rack, buddy. Nintendo's been acquainted with budget pricing longer than either of the other Big Three, and Microsoft has its own Platinum Hits campaign from several years back. We're supposed to be siding with Sony for cutting the high-end budget price by a fiver? Give me a break.
Glog!
I don't know if you've ever bought a used 'cube game, but the last one fom EB (Eternal Darkness) was so scratched and thrashed that it wasn't playable. When I buy games, I buy them to play & to KEEP so that I'll be able to play it in the future.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
I always see best-selling or platinum titles for $19.99, but I always balk at picking them up when I'm out shopping. I really want to pick up Soul Calibur II, but I feel like it's still too expensive.
Now the a few weeks ago I saw Burnout 3 for $18 and picked it up immediately even though it's only a measly 2 bucks cheaper. I'll bite easier that that price point. Probably has to do with knowing that $19.99 is actually $20 that turns my impulse buying off. $17.99 turns into $18 which nicely removes that '2' from the front of the price and my impulse buy buttons get pushed. I would totally buy Soul Calibur II on my next stroll through an electronics section of a store if it was priced at $17.99.
Burnout 3 kicks ass by the way. Think I'll go play it right now...
-my other sig is your mom
God, wouldn't *that* be nice! As it is, the game at release was $50 USD in the US and $50 CAD up here in Canada. This is typical for most computer and video games. What I can't figure out is why you yanks don't shop at Amazon.ca and save a ton of cash! Anyway, I've never seen a dip in price within the first month on any 'cube game, at any rate; Metroid Prime 2 is still $50, which is what I paid for it at Christmas.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Because we don't want any freaking French anywhere with our games. I got screwed with French stuff in my copy of Two Towers which I bought from a Canadian online store since it was cheaper. I would have gladly paid full price not to have the French.
Check out the games - arcade classics and games developed on the Torque engine for $10.
Admittedly you need to be on X-Box live to get this, but nonetheless MS are using their online service to enter the low priced market.
It's inevitable. Paying full price for a AAA that has graphics better than anything you've seen before is kinda worth it, but most games are merely slight improvements over previous incarnations. The back catalogue will catch up with the games market. And as graphics improvements become less noticable, as is looking to be the case when comparing the next generation of consoles with the previous generation, it will become increasingly difficult to sell games that are 3-4 times the price of games that are almost the same.
I meant specifically amazon.ca, not a smaller online retailer. I buy box sets from .com all the time because they're typically $20-30 CAD cheaper than up here. Sorry you had a bad experience! Out of curiousity, do you guys have any duties or taxes to pay to import stuff from Canada?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Ok, so... Nintendo and Microsoft won't drop their existing budget game prices from £20 to £15, and suddenly this means that they're not offering budget-priced games at all? What on Earth did I miss?
Not that I've seen when I've ever purchased anything. As for the French comment every game in Canada must come with at least a French manual, and sometimes they even include French in the game at times. It has something to do with that wierd Quebec region. Thankfully while visiting the majority of Canada is sane, and hates them just as much as everyone else.
I was amazed when I saw Battlefield 2 brand new at Fry's Electronics for only $35 American. There is no way I could have not bought it for that price. Of course I also had to buy a $300 dollar Graphics Card from them to play it.
I don't know what's up with SSBM. Perhaps someone else can clue us in. As for your general experiences with non-dropping prices, it may be particular to Canada or perhaps the stores you visit.
-- $SIGNATURE
Even according to the old Sony pricing scheme, a "Platinum" game for the PS/2 was around 20 Euro at EB Games, less in other places. (Even less if you buy it used.) Bear in mind that this includes a rather hefty VAT, before you compare it to US prices.
;)
And on the PC, I can think of old games I bought for 5 Euro. Not used, just 2-3 years old.
So Nintendo charging 30 Euro for its "budget" games, sorta makes me wonder what dictionary they used to define "budget". Did they use the government employee definition, which basically means "I got this big pile of someone else's money and must blow them all in a given time, no matter on what, or I'll get less next year"?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Take, for instance, super smash brothers melee: up here in Canada, it's *still* $40 or $50 brand new, depending on the retailer, and it's what, four years old? There are the odd exceptions, but it's extremely rare to get *any* gamecube game brand new for under $40, unless it's crap.
In the US, SSBM is a $20 title, if that. Pikmin, Mario Sunshine, Mario Golf and other major games are also $20 new, and less used.
So you may be right complaining about Canada for all I know, but I'm routinely pretty shocked by how cheap games are getting in the US. It almost has the look of late 1983 again, with a glut of games on the market and too few takers. I literally see piles and piles of used games sitting on shelves, in bins and quite literally on floors of the game stores I go to (major chains like EB), some with big giant signs advertising "$9.99 or Less!" These are not crappy games, either - I saw Soul Calibur in the $9.99 pile, and I bought NHL 2K5 and Burnout 3 for $12.99 each last time I was shopping. Those last two are not even that old!
I never, ever buy these "Player's Choice" or "Platinum" discs because, frankly, I don't like the way they look in my collection. And it is always pretty easy to get the original release for even cheaper than the re-release if you buy used. I think I have only one Greatest Hits in my collection for current systems and that's Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution, which was never released in non-GH format to begin with. Even still, I almost never pay more than $20 for any game, new or used. The last time I did was GTA: San Andreas - time before that was FFX-2. I mean we're talking a couple games over several years' time... and I've got hundreds of games in my current collection. Games are cheap down here.
You'd have to do something other than a price cut to get me to buy an XBox game. Just the amount of fun I get playing a Nintendo game makes it worth more than an XBox title, in my opinion. Now I know you're thinking that this is a fanboy post, but I just don't enjoy XBox games. I guess I'm more of an "E rating, but not a sports title" fanboy than a Nintendo fanboy.