Are they out of their minds???

KDR_11k

The XBox 360 launched here today. I didn't buy one but looked at the game prices. 68 Euros. 80 US Dollars. WTF?!? The 60 Euros for console games were already too much, 68 is pure insanity! Especially since most of those games are available for the PC for 40-45 Euros (usually in superior versions) and that doesn't involve buying a new, hard to get piece of hardware!

I know this isn't Microsoft's idea but they should try to do something about that. After all, it's their console (and license income) that suffers from it.

ElysiumGX

edit: oh, the games. nevermind.

yeah, that is insane.

JKMakowka

It's called 'ripping off the early adapors'

A bit OT but I really think 'Games' need to cut the 'middle-man', as that's where most of the money 'vanishes'.

Ninjas

I think it must really help your company in the long run to fleece the people most eager to buy your product for all you can, just so you can lower the price in a couple of months and piss them off.

rooster

Bah I'm going to spend the price of a 360 on upgrading my PC

Joshua Stubbles

Yea, that's f'd up right there. I don't see why 3rd party games are soo much (here as well). How much do the first party games cost? PDZ, PGR3, etc? Here, they're the same as regular games ($49), while third party games are $59.

I don't see the reasoning for it, myself. Games like GUN, Tony Hawk and Quake4 are really really shoddy ports of other versions of the game. Yet, we're being charged $10 more for them? Weak...

oXYnary

Supply and Demand.

KDR_11k

I didn't see people buy many X360 games so supply and demand can't be the reason.

KDR_11k

I still doubt it's supply and demand except if you mean supply as in "games available for the system", not "number of units on sale".

arshlevon

i dont see what in hell people are complaining about when it comes to game prices.. considering inflation and howmuch everything else in the world had almost doubled in price since the 80s, its reassuring to know games are almost the same price.. i remember shelling out 50 bucks for battletoads when it came out on nes.. now a more than a decade later games are still around 50 bucks..
cars went from 5 to 7 grand and now are 20-30 grand for low to midgrade vehicles.. thats quadruple the prices!! and its everything, comics were a buck.. i remember bitching when they jumped up 1.25 then when image came along they were all 2 bucks.. i have no idea how much they are now but i would guess around 3 bucks.. so comics have tripled.. games still about the same prices.. atari systems debuted at around 400 bucks..consoles are still around the same price.. considering it takes millions more $$$$ to make a game now and way more people the fact that prices are so similar to what they were in the 80s boggles my freaking mind.. even stamps have gone up like 5 times.. video games stay the same price and people complain when they go up a few bucks..

so what. i actualy like getting paid for what i do. if it were up to me they would be more.

Sett

The 360 is a Loss Leader.

JKMakowka

@arshlevon: It might have been that way in the USA, but I can very well remember paying about 50-60DM (which was about $25/30) in the mid/late 90s for games here in Germany.

So prices have tripled, and that is NOT on the level of normal inflation.

Ninjas

Supply and demand makes sense if your supply is restricted. I'm sure we all know this isn't the case with DVDs. If they wanted to, they could burn 5 copies for every XBox sold.

Supply and demand applies to scarce resources, which information (ie, game code) is not.

This is actually more like "windowing", and it is designed to separate buyers based on their willingess to pay. In other worlds, screw over people who want it the most. This makes perfect sense on paper, but like I said in my earlier post, it also builds resentment which is hard to quantify.

Devolopement costs for games have gone up, so you are going to pay more. I am happy to pay for game developers to get high wages, but I won't pay for guys in suits to screw me.

thomasp

it's typical for brand new stuff. playstation 2 games were at insane price levels when it was fresh and hip, too.
just wait until the "hype" is over. there's nothing worth the purchase on that box right now anyway. plus: got yourself a HDTV yet?

50 - 60 DM in the late nineties must have applied to older and/or unpopular titles. a top game on PC was easily between 80 - 120 DM. 50 - 60 was the standard price for 90's amiga games, though.

Asthane

Game dev costs are constantly increasing, yes, but so is the market. I couldn't begin to guess the exact growth, ten? twenty? thirty times since ten years ago? Further, physical reproduction costs have gone down to nil with the introduction of CD's and DVD's.

Now, I'd pay $80 if there was a game worth it (I bought a gamecube for one game, Tales of Symphonia), but frankly, I've yet to see anything on the 360 I'd pay $30 for.

KDR_11k

considering inflation and howmuch everything else in the world had almost doubled in price since the 80s

You mean except for electronics? Computers certainly didn't become more expensive, neither did DVD players, VHS recorders or tape players. The electronics sector is becoming cheaper as tech progresses. Games ship on vastly cheaper media these days and extras in the box have been so heavily reduced you're lucky if you even get a manual. Plus we're talking about games that sell for 40 Euros on other systems.

ThomasP: 80-100 DM was standard for PC games, obviously console games were more expensive but they came on expensive to make cartridges so to some degree it's understandable.

thomasp

yep, console cartridge games were more like 100 - 130 if i recall right. of course neo geo stuff was just slightly more expensive than that.

btw. computers targeted at gamers surely are much more expensive these days than in the 80ties. all you needed to play the most current titles back then was a machine that was sold at 900 - 1000 DM (450 euros) plus maybe a few extras like a memory expansion card. and such a machine had the shelf life of a PS2 and was totally superior to PCs of the era for anything gaming/media-related. compare to what you have to pay today. amiga or atari st didn't require you to upgrade for like 5, 6 years...

arshlevon

[ QUOTE ]
Games ship on vastly cheaper media these days and extras in the box have been so heavily reduced you're lucky if you even get a manual. Plus we're talking about games that sell for 40 Euros on other systems.

[/ QUOTE ]

yes but more than make up for it with 50 to 60 man dev teams , all with salaries to support them and thier families for living at this point in time.. not 10 plus years ago when everything was only a thrid of the price.. it costs millions to make a game now sometimes tens of millions.. 10 years ago they were being made by 3 or 4 guys on a 4 to 6 month dev cycles and all getting paid a quarter of what we do now.. there is no media on the face of the planet that is that cheap..

KDR_11k

Movies are 5-10 times as expensive to make yet sell for less. The larger the market becomes, the lower the R&D cost per unit. As the head honcho of the IGDA correctly remarks, the higher the price the smaller your potential market. Higher prices don't necessarily mean higher profit.

arshlevon

moves make way more money because more people watch movies and they dont rely on dvd sales(the product you claim to be cheaper).. they get box office sales.. games has nothing to compare.. they use to back in the good ol arcade days.. a game would make a hefty profit in the arcade then make a console port and really profit.. that era is over.. so games cant touch movies when it comes to the box office there is nothing that compares.. it cost half as much to see a movie than it does to buy it.. and if you like it it might cost you more than it costs to buy the movie to get a few good theater viewings of a good movie..think for one second if it cost you 10 bucks to just play a game once and see if you liked it.. i saw the incredibles 5 times in the theater.. thats 50 bucks.. plus bought the dvd.. that was another 24 the day it came out.. so i spent about 75 bucks US on the incredibles, not only that i took my 2 little sisters and 17 year old brother to see it.. thats 10 bucks for him 5 a pice for them, plus bought them the dvd for christmas, so i really spent more than 100 bucks on the increadables!!.. i have never ever spent that much on a game.. not even close.. movies just generate more profit and have a pretty nice system for making money.. not to mention licences for fast food places and action figures and clothing.. some games do this .. but not hardly as many as films.. walk down the toy isle in any store and see how many movie based figures and toys and trinkets yo see vs games.. not even a comparision really... when a good movie pops its head around like LOTR or spiderman, or the incredables there isnt a game on the planet that could touch the amount of money that they make make when you add in all the merch all the box office sales, dvd sales, rentals, taco bell cups, strawberry flavored saposatories and whatever else they decide to make.. the game industry is shooting it self in the foot with the way it hadles prices and i am not suprised most games tank.. just selling the game isnt a very sound business strategy..