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Price of next-gen games influence your choice?

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JKim3 polycounter lvl 18
I saw this over at Gamespot. It's the rumor at the bottom, about $60 US for Box 360 games.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/03/news_6126948.html

Since I live in Canada, that comes to about $78 Cdn, $89 with tax. That's a fucking lot of money. Anyways. When I first read that, I thought, "fuck that, I'm getting a Revolution". Oh, just a note. I'm thinking that the Rev games will be cheaper. More similar to the current gen's price. Mainly because if it's underpowered compared to the other 2 systems, it might have lower production costs. If it has lower production costs, it might have a lower price for their games. But, we'll see once everything is out. Anyways.

I'm just wondering how much the price of games would influence people's choice in consoles? For me, it's kinda important. I like to buy a lot of games, so I would like to pay a kind of reasonable price. If there were only 2-3 games I wanted a year, then that would be ok, but in the last year, I bought a crap load of games. But, if I don't own the system that these games are out on, I don't really mind.

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  • gauss
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    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    i'm not even going to consider wasting brainpower on the subject, at least as a consumer (as a game developer it may be a wee different, but not terribly much). i got in on the current generation relatively late in the game, and i'm very happy that i did. all the consoles were a half (or in the gamecube's case, a fraction) of their starting retail price, and getting in late allows for a nice buildup of qualities titles and a lower system price before you get invested. why pay out the ass for a new console for just a few launch titles? i think that i could very likely continue to play the current generation for the next year and a half, possibly even two. if the PSP gets a few really good games (GTA, i'm looking at you with a hopeful expression on my face) i could see getting in on that... but as far as next gen? Revolution could be tempting for the reasons you mentioned, but even Nintendo is going to have to roll out some mighty good titles to get me to bite.

    the fact is that there are a ton of verifiably great current generation console and PC games i haven't played yet. i'm pretty sure they'll keep me busy for a while smile.gif
  • KDR_11k
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    KDR_11k polycounter lvl 18
    I'm already paying 60 Euros for a console game compared to 40-45 for a PC game (GBA games cost the same as PC games...), if they want even more than that I'll happily go PC-only again. But then I haven't bought a single PS2 game at full price yet (technically one of them was almost full price but the store was going bust and flogged the games at 20% off so I paid 40). Don't see a reason to plunk down 60 for a new game when you can get slightly older games for 30-40. Unfortunately GC games don't drop in price.
  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    It all depends on what kind of consumer you are, and what you're willing to dish out.

    I stood in line 5 hours before Best Buy opened to get my Xbox on launch day, but that's me. Stupid? Sure, most of you might say that. But I enjoy the wait, talking to all of the other freaks that come out for the system.

    As far as price goes, I don't think it will affect my purchases much. I remember paying $75 for quite a few N64 games (Turok2, anyone?). I won't buy quite as many games as before, but I'll still buy a game if I really want it.
  • KDR_11k
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    KDR_11k polycounter lvl 18
    I think he ws asking what kind of customer (don't devalue yourself by using the term consumer, you are the one paying their bills, after all) you are.
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    $50 dollar games are already hard for me to swallow. I cant really do more than one about every 6-11 months. With the price increase-even less.
  • Rwolf
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    Rwolf polycounter lvl 18
    At least it'll never be as expenisive as the N64 Cartriges, I remeber the bigger stuff being near, or over $100 Canadian.

    But if $60 US is the case, I'd rather rent than buy. There's not too many keepers in my case... Maybe I'm just picky :P
  • saturnfive
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    saturnfive polycounter lvl 18
    Obviously production and marketing costs are going up, but I would have thought actually lowering the price a little would enlarge the market, resulting in larger eventual revenues?
  • hawken
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    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    exactly where did you read that the rev is underpowered? they've not released the specs yet to my knowledge...
  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    Considering I have to pay bills, eat, and maintain a home...there's still so many Gamecube games I haven't played and time I haven't found to play them. The prices now are a little too much for me. I'll most likely buy the Revolution after selling my Gamecube on ebay. Being able to play my GC games is a plus. Not to mention I can get all the old NES games I miss for like $5 on ebay. I just played 20 rounds of Duck Hunt last night, and it felt good. I'm not paying $60+ to be entertained for 3 days with a game that's very similar to the previous version.

    edit: I doubt Rev will be as underpowered as everyone believes. Maybe not as powerful, but the focus for Nintendo is gameplay.
  • CheapAlert
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    CheapAlert polycounter lvl 18
    not like kids are going to notice graphical differences between the 3 consoles on their shit TV's
  • BoBo_the_seal
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    BoBo_the_seal polycounter lvl 18
    I actually see the price of next gen consols helping the sells of Xbox 1 or at least extending it's life a bit. The problem is that most of the 360 games looked minutely better than current tech games. Why shell out the cash if you can get a game that looks just as good at a fraction of the price? I personally “think” you’re going to see good Xbox 1 games continually hit the market for a couple (possibly 3 more) years. This would be a great time for MS to put out a scaled down version of the Xbox 1 system.

    Now as far as I go it won’t affect me much. I’ll own all the systems and buy every platform game that hits the market regardless of price. I can get away with it because I tell my wife and the IRS its “research materials”. smile.gif

    - BoBo
  • JKim3
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    JKim3 polycounter lvl 18
    Damnit, Bobo! We're not allowed to get away with that in Canada, anymore. It's something like you have to own a company to be able to do that. Man, if we were able to do that, everything I do, except eat and buy clothes, would be for research.

    Hawken: It's just a suspicion I have and also a little bit of a hope. Whichever factors lead to nintendo being top again are great. Sadly, I just don't think they will be. Also, the question is based completely on speculation. We don't know if that is actually going to be the price of games, that they're going to stay that way, that the PS3 games aren't going to be cheaper, or that the Revolution games aren't going to be that much. The power of the Rev is just speculation, too.
  • arshlevon
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    arshlevon polycounter lvl 18
    i dont see this as a big deal.. i am not rich or anything.. but the price in games hasent really gone up any in its ENTIRE history.. the atari 2600 debut price was close to 300 bucks.. thats about $600 in 2005 prices.. i remember paying 45 bucks for battletoads on the NES.. if you just look at how inflation has affected the rest of the economy (cars and homes) it really boggles my mind games are as cheap as they are.. i hope they go up in price.. maybe us,the people that make them will actually start getting paid what we are worth..
  • Slayerjerman
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    Slayerjerman polycounter lvl 18
    Im with Oxy. $45~$55 for a game is too expensive for any system/PC. Being on a budget and looking to purchase a home soon, I cant just go blow that kind of money every paycheck anymore.

    I gladly bought serious sam the day it came out cuz it was a cool $20 bux. That was a well priced game and fun as hell.

    Thankfully we live in a market where the value of a game drops very rapidly over the course of 4~6months. If you can wait (or just borrow the game from someone) You really can save yourself some serious money. (no pun intended).

    Personally, I will never pay $60 for a game. I will gladly wait and/or borrow it. $300 for the ps1 when it first came out was a ton of money, took me like 4 months of saving to buy that and I didnt even get a game til 2 months later...had to rent alot
  • hawken
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    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    I once spent £70 ($140) on a SNES title, you guys had it cheap, in the 90's we paid through the balls in the UK.

    Even now its close to £40 ($80) for a game on release. Here in Japan games are a little bit more expensive than in the UK.

    As Arshlevon states, you guys are living in a dream world, the price of games is actually lower or about the same as it's always been, certainly lower than it's ever been.

    With the higher cost of development these days, cheap games games will have to sell in DVD movie quantities just to keep it all going.
  • KDR_11k
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    KDR_11k polycounter lvl 18
    Slayer: Word. Yesterday I bought Dawn of War for a tenner. That's some seriously fast price dropping. You have to remember that console games don't drop in price as fast, though. Most disappear from the shelves before they even drop to 30.

    hawken: They're 60 Euros (73 USD) in the rest of Europe, except for the more remote countries where they cost even more. You don't get ripped off by that much in the UK. Australian game prices are comparable. The US simply has the cheapest games.

    I'd gladly accept lower graphical standards in my games if it meant cheaper games. Screw hours of movie-quality cutscenes or crap like that (though Westwood fit videos into their much smaller budgets back then), games can be fun without having 20 million budgets. Maybe if they didn't attempt to make a completely realistic game the price would be lower.
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]

    I'd gladly accept lower graphical standards in my games if it meant cheaper games.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I would also, as it can still allow lots of originality. Deus Ex 1 vs 2. The newer version with all the ouuhs and auuhs of normal mapped characters was shorter, gameplay not as polished, and totally unoptimized.

    I also was/am a fan of Serious Sam.
  • Badname
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    Badname polycounter lvl 18
    60$? what the hell? xbox games kost 70 euro ;o thats like 78+$ Were bing ripped off in europe frown.gif
    I hope that the prices stay the same here... I hope they have learned from doom3 that costed 60euro in the benelux instead of the 50 euro in the rest of europe, trying to ripp us off the sells in benelux were pretty bad hopefully they learned not to f*ck around with us again :P
  • KDR_11k
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    KDR_11k polycounter lvl 18
    70 Euros?!? Whoa, you're being ripped off more than us, we pay "only" 60. For console games, that is. PC games always were and still are 40-45 Euros.

    I think they won't raise the prices here, they're still leftovers from the high dollar time and I think not much lower than the prices during the cart gens. The US is paying much less than the rest of the world and I can see why they're going to raise prices there.
  • Mojo2k
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    Mojo2k polycounter lvl 18
    there was this same argument with game prices between every advancement in game consoles, and everyone puts up with it. this will be no difrent, really, "bitch bitch bitch. ohhhhhh shiney" then purchase
  • KDR_11k
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    KDR_11k polycounter lvl 18
    "puts up with it"? I can't remember the last time a new console gen brought higher prices with it.
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