Sony Hints At Higher Priced Games

Sony's Kaz Hirai hints that, in addition to the $600 console, we may have even more expensive games to look forward to. From the Gamasutra article: "I don't think consumers expect software pricing to suddenly double. So, the quick answer is that we want to make it as affordable as possible, knowing that there is a set consumer expectation for what software has cost for the past twelve years. That's kind of the best answer I can give you. So, if it becomes a bit higher than $59, don't ding me, but, again, I don't expect it to be $100."

Comments

Re:Already too Expensive

[26reverse]

Agreed. That's the main reason I troll the "budget" software bins nowadays. There are a lot of great games out there if you're okay with "less than stellar" graphics. Graphics improve over time... but a good storyline is always a good storyline.

As such - I just (finally?) nabbed a copy of Baldur's Gate 2 with expansion for $10. Rise of Nations is also "budget" now... and their single-player mode really adds more than the typical "keep replaying random map".

Re:What are they thinking?

[Kazzahdrane]

I won't bother with converting the currencies but here in the UK new Xbox 360 games (with the exception of pretty much just Rockstar Table Tennis) cost £49.99 in stores. I work in a games store and we've been told that PS3 games are likely to cost "between 50 and 70 pounds".

Who do Sony think they're kidding? If a game costs as much as £70 I think a lot of people are going to look at our price of £99.99 for a DS Lite and a game and think "Woah, I'm being screwed".

RTFA?

[Moraelin]

Actually, the summary on Slashdot is highly incorrect. If you read what the guy says on Gamasutra, it's

A) in response to Activision's making a fuss that games should be more expensive, since apparently Activision's development costs are too high to be covered even by $59, and

B) all that the Sony guy basically says is along the lines of "well, we can't go much higher than $59, because people expect games to be between $59 and $39. We can't suddenly price a game at $99, because noone would buy it. Even if we could slightly increase the price, it would be at most a very small increase, not what Activision wants."

Basically that's all there. It's _not_ about Sony wanting to raise game prices, it's Sony telling Activision "dude, put down the bong, we _can't_ sell your games for $99." I.e., pretty much the opposite of what the Slashdot summary says.