Actual Coin-Up Game on PSN

The totally reliable Kotaku claims that a special version of the PSN game Gomibako (Trash Panic) has been released in Japan. This one costs only 100 yen (about US$1) to “buy”… except that this isn’t the price for the game, it’s the price for three credits! Once you’ve used them up you can buy more, at the same price of 100 yen for 3 credits.

Sounds weird but I think pay-per-play is not perhaps a terrible idea – the problem here is that (as usual) the price is far too high. I don’t know the regular price for Gomibako but you can get full games on PSN for $5-10, not to mention those newfangled $1 iPhone games. This kind of micropayment has to get a lot more micro to gain any traction.

Let me just say that Trash Panic is $5 (US) and absolutely worth it.

Is it much more expensive in Japan, then? Otherwise that pricing makes no sense.

edit: Just read the 1up review of Trash Panic. I had been completely unaware of this game but it does sound awesome!

Yes it’s about $15 in the JP store. As for the coin-op sytle of pay to play gaming, I’m not against the idea. It would be an interesting experiment.

The system doesn’t make upselling very likely, though. Maybe if 100 yen got you 50 yen off the purchase of the full game…