Why Next-Gen Titles Cost $60

Heartless Gamer writes "Forbes.com has up an article detailing what goes into the $60 price tag for next generation games. Publishers get about a buck per copy sold. 'The remaining $59 per game goes into many hands. The biggest portion — nearly 45% — goes toward simply programming and designing the game itself. Then the console maker, retailer and marketers each get a cut. Add in manufacturing and management costs, and depending on the type of game, a license fee. Some gamemakers also have to pay a distributor to help get their titles in stores.'"

Way past my impulse buy point

[sixteenvolt]

When I am browsing through something like Steam, I don't think twice about buying a game for $20 or $30. For $60, it definitely becomes a calculated purchase, and I really start questioning how badly I want the game.

$60 seems to be pushing the extreme limits of how much I'd even pay for a video game under ANY circumstances. I wonder if this line will ever be crossed?

Re:What about Wii?

[Blakey Rat]

It's an interesting market. The console makers get a "cut" because they hold the keys to the car. Without using Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo's encryption on your disk, it's unplayable on their console. Slashdotters hate DRM. (And stop winging on about Nintendo being so great, the reason the Gamecube disks are so mutant is specifically to make them hard to copy.)

The console makers generally charge a fee to publish the game on their console, but then they spend this fee in additional testing and QA for the game. Microsoft has teams of people QAing non-Microsoft games to meet minimum established standards of quality. Since the publishers don't complain about this arrangement, I'm guessing that the QA service Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo provides is worth the publishing fee, but I don't know.

Chrono Trigger was $100 in speciality stores

[Astarica]

Was it because it cost roughly twice of any game that's ever been developed? Or maybe cartridges cost $40 more than CDs? No, it's because whoever sold it thought this is the right place to maximize profit. They may be right or wrong, and history seems to indicate $100 is probably the wrong price to sell a popular game. But really it's not our problem whether games are priced right or wrong. If they're priced wrong the publisher eventually pays for that mistake. If $30 gets you more profit than $60, eventually someone will notice this and start selling them at $30. The fact it's not happening suggests selling at $60 might be a good idea after all.