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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."
Games are already too expensive as it is, which is one reason I quit playing them about 2 years ago. I can get a lot more enjoyment out of $60 doing something outside or with friends and family than I can spending hours in the basement mashing buttons.
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When people are outraged at the price of your console, tell them you'll charge more for the games too. Sure. I'd like to know where that guy learned marketing.
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Sony has stated they have no real answer for Halo 3. Sony's tech demos and specs were less than overwhelming. Even Microsoft, who seemed to enjoy rising with Sony to the top during the last console generation, has come out to say that they're siding with Nintendo (alright, not literally, but you know what I mean). Finally, sony announces that they will most likely raise prices a 'bit' above the already high $59.
Someone's smoking something, and if it screws up their logic this badly, I might just want some.
The Sony Playstation S&M: Sony's got the "S" covered, guess where that leaves you?
Do they have any toes left at this point?
When you buy a PS3, someone from Sony will come and kill your puppy or kitty. If you do not have a puppy or kitty, one will be assigned to you, and then it will be killed.
If it's a super hit game, then charging $100 on the first day or for pre-release is only good economics -- if there are people willing to pay that much, why not? You can always drop the price later, while increasing it later will definitely sting more. Granted, I would prefer to not see any games over $50, I know that the market is just so high now that if a console is $600 when it used to be $100, then games are probably pushing $100 or even $150 for it! Now if you're dumb enough to buy madden 20XX supreme ultra plus edition for $100, then you deserve to be disappointed if it turns out to be "Yet Another Football Game".
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This article is flat-out misleading.
He was asked about prices going higher. He didn't bring it up. He didn't say they would go higher. He didn't hint they would go higher. He meerly refused to rule it out as a possibility in an uncertain future.
Well, since you read TDB, I'm sure you caught this comment ( http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa122.html# comp ) where they found out it's the HDMI interface on the Samsung that causes the problems; switching to component placed Blu-Ray nearly on par with HD-DVD.
Hopefully they'll get that fixed before companies start enforcing the downsample flag...
I'm as much of a gamer as most people, but honestly, who the hell are they marketing this towards*? The "my parents are divorced and one parent is over-compensating with insane toys" subsect of the market doesn't seem to be large enough to sustain a console. How many teenagers/college students can afford something like this? As a college student myself, I work more than I probably should, and I don't come close to breaking even after tuition and such. I purchased a PS2 not too long ago, and generally don't get any games that are much more than $20. If I ever purchase another console, it's probably going to be a Wii just from an economical standpoint. I don't care if Sony has the OMGLOOKATTHATZ polygons (which, from hardware comparisons, it won't) or if they have a GTA for every city in the country (which, since it's not exclusive to their console, everyone will)...with $600 + ~$80 per game, I could invest in Microsoft and Nintendo and watch Sony weep as their computer without a keyboard fucking tanks.
* -- Don't end sentences with prepositions, kids.
I almost get the idea that in Sony's own world this is somehow being presented to "hype" the console. The wording of these articles are priceless since I was honestly expecting someone (from the article) to try and explain how this is a good thing. (as in: PS3 = Fancy resturant, games = fancy desserts.) I am not sure how continuing to leak information about the high cost of the system is going to help Sony.
Even so, it would seem as if there are some fans who would still buy the system and games even if they continued to raise the price.
Let me just head one line of reasoning off at the pass: I'm sure someone's going to start throwing around calculations involving inflation and real purchasing power. Which are right... ...but they don't matter.
People, by and large, do not factor the devaluation of money between then and now into their price comparisons. For example, consider gas prices - everyone complains about them, despite the fact that they're actually lower (in terms of real dollars) than they were 25 years ago.
Yet you'll always hear the stories about how "I remember when a gallon of gas was fifty cents!"
Video games are the same way. They've been in the $50 range for a long time, and people are therefore acclimated to that price point. It doesn't really matter that $50 for a game in 1995 was more money than $50 is now.
According to a calculator I found online (grain of salt, but it passes my smell test and I can't be arsed to really research this just now), $200 in 1985 translates to $363 in 2005. Which means that the premium XBox 360 is a whole $36 more expensive than the NES (and the core system $63 cheaper!), in terms of real purchasing power. This has not stopped plenty of people complaining about its price.
Of course, anyone who figures real purchasing power into the equation is right, when you come down to it...but it doesn't matter when it comes to what drives the purchasing public to either pull the trigger or not on a new toy.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Nintendo has specifically said that they are aiming for a $50 price ceiling for games. When asked.
Sony? "Well, we doubt they'll get up to $100".
There's a reason people are fed up with what's coming out of Sony currently.
The less likely I am to buy it on impulse. Most games suck, as simple as that. I'm willing to risk $20 against the chances that the game will suck. At the $50 I'm much less inclined to buy a game on the spur of the moment. At $70 almost all of the games would look unappealing given that I can wait a year, buy them used (In which case the publisher gets NOTHING) or both. At more than $70, I'd be inclined to chuck the console and find a different hobby.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I object to PS3 and XBox 360 being termed "next generation". They're exactly the same as what we have now, just at higher resolutions. Resolutions hardly anybody has. Most people I know think they have HDTVs, and then I point out that they have merely EDTV, or a HD-Ready TV. I tell them to truly experience the XBox 360, they have to drop some serious $$$ for something that does 720P and a DTS system. Then they can go spend another $$$$ on a BluRay or HD-DVD player, and basically gamble whether they're getting another BetaMax.
High Definition is such a stupid direction the industries taking. People don't care, they aren't flocking to Best Buy to upgrade. I'm a geek who's into and actually understands all this crap, HDMI, 1080i vs 1080p, and so on, and I don't care. I really don't give a rats ass about high-definition anything, it doesn't improve the experience of TV, movies or console video games.
So Sony and MSFT have hitched their wagons to the HDTV "revolution" that isn't going to take place. They can only force upgrades, a la "buy a PS3 because we aren't making PS2 games anymore".
Now, Wii is different, watching the videos of the guy playing Red Steel, made me wonder "why didn't we have that before?" It looks like such a natural way to play an FPS, it looks like it may even be SUPERIOR to a keyboard and mouse. I'll have to wait and see. It seems like more of a gimmick, and something that will be here to stay. The first time I saw the NES control pad, I thought it was a cheesy gimmick, and could never replace the Wico Command Control I used with my C64. Games are played with joysticks, not stupid little boxes with buttons to move, I thought. I was wrong.
Wii and it's wii-mote are something different, and flunk or fail, actually innovative.
Of course it's all about the games, and a "killer app" can change everything overnight. Halo was MSFT's crutch for the XBox, but that seems like a fluke. It won't happen again with Halo 3. So far I see nothing coming down the pipe from Sony or MSFT that piques my interest. But damnit, I want to play some FPS with that pointer, and I want to be able to cheaply download some of nintendo's past hits. Right up my alley.
IMO, Wii is the only truly "next generation" system. It actually offeres something evolutionary over the last generation. All PS3 and XBox 360 seem to have is high prices, faulty hardware, and "new features" that would cost me 5 grand to be able to use.
I think Sony and MSFT going the high-end route is going to hurt them, and Nintendo just might rise back to the top. They seem most likely to put out the next "killer app" at this point.
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"Clearly, we're intent on preventing anyone from actually buying or using this product" he said, "but, just in case, we've also added a small amount of plastic explosive to the power supply and dipped the game controller in anthrax."
Is that Halo 3 will launch when the PS3 does. Now that may not happen, 2007 is the stated launch date, but I could see it. There's been quite a bit of time to work on it, I'd say there's a reasonable chance it could be made ready to release on short notice. So suppose MS does do that, the PS3 launches or is about to launch and they go "Hey guess what? We decided to drop the 360 price... Oh and look what we found in our back pocket, it's Halo 3 and it happens to be on sale now." That would be a major blow to the PS3 launch. Sony would need a game to compete, so to speak, the killer game that people are waiting for that makes the $500-600 worth it. Otherwise, maybe they decide a 360 and Halo 3 are more worth it.
The problem isn't if they have something specific as a Halo 3 response, the problem is if Halo 3 (and the Wii launch) are able to take enough of the wind out of their sales and really cripple PS3 adoption. Consoles are very much a feedback cycle. The more people that own them, the more interest there is in making games for them (because of mroe sales). More games drives more ownership and so on.
Already the game industry is a bit skeptical of the PS3. Between the shifting information, the delays, the price, and the slow dev kits, there's concern about it. If MS and/or Nintendo successfully deal a major blow to the launch, that could really screw them over all because it could convince devs that the PS3 isn't worth porting to, or at the very least isn't worth going exclusive on. That alone could be enough to ensure that it isn't all that successful, and given the amount of R&D dumped in it, they need a deceant success to see black on the project.
This isn't a doomsday scenario or anything, but it's a real concern. MS is not stupid and they know a thing or two about crushign competitors. Don't put it past them to go full court press and try to fuck over Sony's launch in every way possible.
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.
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