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."

Comments

With all 3 consoles' successors about a year away

[Txiasaeia]

...it's definitely time for the prices for these console games to come down. Although I love my Gamecube, this is what drives me nuts about it: the prices never seem to really go down. 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.

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 ;)

Not just budget, but smaller games too

[Peter Cooper]

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.

We've had lots of articles on /. 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!