I don’t know. With the way things are today, a lot of consumers will likely balk at the sudden appearance of a significantly higher price tag.
Personally, if all the next gen titles are going to be that much, you can expect me to continue playing soley on my XBox well into 2007-2008 until market correction happens. I can’t imagine the public will allow the market to strong-arm them into this without hard feelings of any kind.
The price point for new PC games in Finland is already at an average of 55€ (~$71). New console games are always over 60€ (~$78) and often closer to 70€ (~$91). Gamers here are already really disgruntled by the prices and those of us who can order their games from UK (well, Jersey, since it’s a non-VAT area) and US. I can’t see ANY way the market here can bear prices any higher than this. Already, most people will just wait for the price to drop (which it hardly does over here), buy their games used or just turn to warez.
First off: thank God I’m not the only one who remembers when console games were routinely $60+ back in the 16-bit era! You kids were starting to make me feel old… :P
Yes, but from the publisher’s perspective, what matters is the total cost of developing, producing, and marketing a game. E.g., say it costs them $10M to develop and reproduce 200K copies of Game X. It doesn’t matter to them where or how that money was spent - whether it was on development or on physical media reproduction or on hookers for the “marketing campaign” or whatever - they’re gonna want to make that money back. So balking at paying more for a game simply because the reproduction costs haven’t gone up is silly, IMHO, if you know that’s not the only cost associated with getting the game into the store.
Videogame development costs have obviously skyrocketed in the last decade or so, because each generation of consoles is substantially more powerful than the last and it requires substantially more effort - and more money - to exploit that power. And I don’t think the videogame market is growing at quite the same pace. So if development costs go up substantially while the target market remains roughly the same size, then obviously the price of games will have to go up.
Personally, if all the next gen titles are going to be that much, you can expect me to continue playing soley on my XBox well into 2007-2008 until market correction happens. I can’t imagine the public will allow the market to strong-arm them into this without hard feelings of any kind.
If you sit out the launch and wait 18-24 months you will probably be able to get an Xbox 2 for $199 and have a selection of greatest hits games for $19.99, or perhaps $24.99 if they raise the price of those too.
I’m almost certain that we won’t get next gen systems for our house until they’ve been out a few years. It wasn’t that long ago that we got the PS2 and Xbox, and we didn’t get a Gamecube until Xmas '04. I’m really wondering if only the hardcore console gamers will rush to buy these things?
Well, the hardcore, and the kids. There aren’t many 13 year olds on this board, and I know some of you are old farts, but I don’t think many of you have teenage kids yet, but it’s those guys that care about having the same hot new games everyone else is playing at the same time. I don’t have any answers as to how much the price hike would influence their ability to get their parents to buy them games, but I think they’re definitely one of the groups of buyers to watch.
Hell, my 7-year-old is asking me about Halo and why he can’t play it.
Videogames sales are going to be split up, in a pie chart, into EA and “everyone else”
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I think it’ll be an interesting experiment to see if the market can bear a $65 price tag. Obviously some of the publishers have been signalling this for quite a while, in the hope that the rest of the pack is going to follow suit and they won’t have the only games priced $15 higher on the shelf.
It’s hard to gauge the market based on this board, being comprised mostly of older, current and former hard-core gamers. I’m sure a lot of us have “dream games” we’d be willing to pay $100 for–but we’re also kind of burnt out on the run of the mill, take or leave games. In general I’m not willing to pay over $35 dollars for games.
The funny thing is… the market already used to bear more than a $65 price tag… there were quite a few games back in the 16-bit era that launched for that much or more… the average game was $59.99. I remember paying $74.99 for Final Fantasy 3.
EFL: That has been brought up in this thread. I think we can safely assume the market couldn’t bear it back then or prices would’ve stayed at that level. It’s all a matter of where you can make the most money, and they must’ve found that by dropping the prices they could sell enough extra copies to make it worth-while.
Gamers think that if they say they won’t pay X for a game the price won’t go up. In their minds they are playing chicken and they hope the publisher moves first.
Gamers will definitely pay more than they currently do for games. Games are much more of a time committment than a money committment. Games being more expensive would cause more selectivity but very few gamers would just quit buying games altogether if the price went up $10.
I believe what really happened is that games went from an “expensive” media like cartridges to a “cheap” media like discs. Evidence of this is that N64 games maintained that price point. In effect prices dropped because games became cheaper to produce.
That is precisely why the Big Three (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) should be sensible about this. I have bought 3 different generations of launch consoles in the past. They’ll lose my launch money and probably more if they insist on launching before the current run of consoles are done and allow companies like EA to jack up prices for software. I don’t have kids or anything like that - I just can’t see myself paying $65 for anything but the absolute cream of the crop. People are going to get downright pissed off if they drop $65 expecting a triple A game and instead get something that lasts only 8-10 hours with dubious quality.
Sure, people did pay over $50 in the past, but publishers don’t think of that era as the “golden years” of video game sales. When did sales really boom? Yep, when games were $50 or under - everybody bought more. Sega already proved their point last year by selling many more units at $20 than they did previously at $50. It can be done. Publishers are just too damn greedy.
But publishers also know they can’t hold the highest price point very long when there’s a constant stream of new games being released. So, they soak the suckers who have to have a title the day or month it’s released. I’m seeing games fall from full price in less than 2 months after release (yes, Blinx 2, I’m looking at you).
With that in mind, there’s no reason for EA not to put a premium onto its 2006 NFL game (I’m betting they drop Madden), since there’s no price pressure on them at all. I’m frankly surprised that GTA:SA didn’t launch with at least a slight premium. Maybe a price cap was part of the exclusive Sony deal.
Every console generation has begun before the consoles before them were tapped out. People were still buying Playstation in large numbers when PS2 shipped. Only the hardcore buy at launch anyway. And this time they’re talking about charging ridiculous premiums for the new consoles, as much as $399.99 has been quoted for Xbox 2, so that they can make money longer on the next generation and maybe stretch out the lifecycle a little longer so they can make even MORE money. With a higher initial price of the console, you get more psychological “value” from each successive price drop.
As for more expensive games, I really think that’s foolish once a console is established. But I can easily see them gouging at launch next time. We saw those bundles for PS2, Xbox and Gamecube last time. I fully expect that to happen again and for them to jack everything up by $10 at launch too. The question really becomes, “How many of the hardcore can AFFORD to buy at launch?” They may all want one, but not everyone’s going to go into hock to get one, myself included.
–Dave
The only console I’m planning on buying at launch this gen is the PSP, which doesn’t really count.
Then again, I didn’t get a PS2 until last August, so I think I’ve shown resolve when it comes to avoiding buying new systems :)
I bought an Atari Jaguar at launch. I’m a hardware whore, what can I say?
This whole Madden ordeal is is price fixing, and it’ll end in court. When ESPN got the Sega Sports franchise, dropped the price to $30 and EA’s response was to conspire with the NFL to eliminate competition. Some consumer group is going to take the price-fixing class-action precedent in the music industry to court against EA and win.
At $30 or $50, the devs won’t see a dime until they start their own companies. They’re like comic book authors or hollywood screenwriters, they shy away from the part of the process where money changes hands, so they don’t get a cut.
So did I. Gave up Secret of Mana to get it. I don’t regret it either. Tempest 2000 is more than enough reason to own that system forever.
–Dave