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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
...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
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.
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.
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.
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