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Games Entertainment

Console Game Prices Going Up? 90

Posted by michael from the blood-from-a-turnip dept.
The Bungi writes "MSNBC is running a story that I found interesting in light of the previous article here on Slashdot predicting hardware prices will likely fall. The MSNBC piece is quoting analysts that think software prices might go up by about $10 for a new title. The reasons? Among others, more complex games and anti-piracy measures built into the media. Get ready for $60 Halo II."
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Console Game Prices Going Up? More

Console Game Prices Going Up?

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  • Well.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by M.C. Hampster ( 541262 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .retspmaHehT.C.M.> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @04:58PM (#6226748) Journal

    That's why I've never bought the argument that the reason software (including games) is so expensive is because of piracy. Supposedly, no one can really copy a Gamecube game and play it on a Gamecube (at least yet), but the prices for the games are the same as the XBox, which supposedly has a piracy problem and PS2.

  • ...can make "Enter the Matrix" (on PS2) a fun, sensibly-plotted and bug-free game, well then, here's my 60 bucks!

    GTRacer
    - Not the One

    • I got a copy for free for my gamecube, and I wasn't expecting much at all. I must say, I was pleasantly suprised. Yes, it was still the usual formulaic 3rd-person action game that we've seen a million times over, but after a while you master the controls and the game becomes a lot more fun to play. It just pisses me off that after you've finished it you don't get the option to play through without the cutscenes, which makes the loading times excruciating.

  • Bargain Shopping (Score:4, Funny)

    by JasonMaggini ( 190142 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:02PM (#6226776)
    The last console game I bought only cost 50 cents.

    Of course, it was for my Atari 2600, and prices have fallen a bit...

  • Up? They should be going down (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:05PM (#6226811) Homepage
    The reasons? Among others, more complex games and anti-piracy measures built into the media

    Anti-piracy measures should increase revenue, not decrease it; otherwise, why use them at all? If anything, the prices should come down as a result of less piracy (I mean, isn't piracy forcing companies to raise prices? That's what I've always been told).

    As for the increased complexity of games, shouldn't it - at least in part - be offset by code reuse? Developing a similar game or a sequel should be much easier than the initial title.

    Remember how a few years ago every game had full motion video? Now that you can get decent results with real-time rendering, we don't need all these real-life actors, just voice talent.

    • Anti-piracy measures should increase revenue, not decrease it; otherwise, why use them at all? If anything, the prices should come down as a result of less piracy (I mean, isn't piracy forcing companies to raise prices? That's what I've always been told).

      Well, there's the added cost of the anti-piracy measures. First, they add that price.

      But you expect them to drop the expected piracy % based on new anti-piracy techniques? No, they're going to keep that estimate at the same level (as far as pricing is

      • They're the ones standing to make money from the success of these anti-piracy measures; they should be the ones risking money. As a consumer, anti-piracy measures offer me no incentive to buy the product; if the price is higher but with no benefit for the consumer, sales will be lost.

        P.S. Anti piracy measures? What/how? I can see them in the next generation of hardware - imagine every sector read from the DVD signed with Nintendo's 4096 bit private key, and the signature checked with every sector read (the
    • mo-cap mean anything to you? Motion capture? There was quite a lot of noise made about Jada Pinkett doing more work for the matrix game than she did for the movie. There will be plenty of work for actors in video games...I mean who wouldn't buy the game with the authentic motion capture, as opposed to some gumpy interns movement?
      • Yeah, instead of an actor and lighting guy now they need:
        - Voice Actor
        - Stuntman (for recording movements-optional)
        - Modellers/Artists
        And both use the usual assortment of sound ppl.

        Prices for all that ought to balance out won't they?
    • As for the increased complexity of games, shouldn't it - at least in part - be offset by code reuse? Developing a similar game or a sequel should be much easier than the initial title.

      I had a friend who worked at Berkeley Systems on their "You Don't Know Jack" line. According to him, the first game lost money. But when they developed it, they made it in such a way that it was extremely easy to come out with different edition (granted, trivia games do lend themselves to this naturally.) The figure I was
      • Can you ask your friend when the next YDKJ game is coming out? Also, tell him to make sure it's funny, cheap, and not filled with stupid measures to call the mothership on the drop of a hat to make sure it's a "legitimate" copy.

  • Future (Score:2, Interesting)

    by suineg ( 647189 )
    I would think that as we move along to the future hardware will stop being so different and it will just be a matter of aesthetics or just which brand you want to back. Software will be the main difference. I would say raise the software prices IF hardware prices go down. People put a big chunk down for a high end PC and then they buy one or two games a year because they are still paying off their PC. Make a high end PC around $500 and games around $60 and then people will buy some more games for their chea
    • Um... yeah, except that one company sells the computer, and another company sells the software. Unless, of course, Dell wanted to purchase Electronics Boutique, or Gateway wanted to buy Software Etc. I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with that, as long as they make the EB store bigger so more people can fit in at once... EB never has windows, and always smells like teenager sweat. Ew.

  • What I want to know is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Suicide ( 45320 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:06PM (#6226817) Homepage
    If anti-piracy technologies are supposed to make games harder to pirate, then there should be less priacy. If there's less priacy, then they should sell mores copies of protected software. Why should I pay extra for something that should already make them more money?

    Of course, all of that was based on the assumption that piracy costs the industry money.

  • The best way to combat piracy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by huh_ ( 53063 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:08PM (#6226836)
    would be to LOWER the price of the games.
    • I doubt that would help. Why pay any money if you can get something free? And in places like China were there is a physical blackmarket, that means you have to beat the price of $2. Else people will just buy from there anyways. (And you still get a laser-etched disc too)

      For the MMORPGs, lowering the price of monthly subscriptions could help, but those can't be pirated anyway.
      • Sure it would help, I would rather buy a game for $30 (Canadian, where games are usually between $70-90 here) than waste a day or two trying to download the iso. As it stands now, I don't do either.

  • Looks like a RIAA company model (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:23PM (#6226961) Homepage Journal
    Says towards the bottom of the article that only about 10% of the games are big hits. IOW, you pay more for the top tier games because of all of the shovelware that comes out.

    The price will go up until the soccer moms stop buying titles for their little brats.

  • Perhaps game prices should go up. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bkedelen ( 673315 ) <bkedelen@yahoo.com> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:27PM (#6226989)
    I remember paying $40 for Apple II games in the 80s. Inflation must certainly take its toll on game prices eventually, and I am all for supporting game developers. What I am not for is supporting the near-extortion practices of game publishers (coughmicrosoftcough) who force developers to get games out the door prematurely. That, I believe, is why we see games with so much less spit and polish than we used to. The first time I saw a game seg fault on the Xbox, I raged. Because of that, I am willing to pay $60 for a Blizzard game that I know will be clean and well-concieved. And for software which is belted out before a Christmas deadline so that a trillion dollar multinational corporation can recoup losses on the system itself, I'll pay nothing at all...
    • Thank you.

      I too remember paying $40 or $50 for games in the 1980s.

      That's 14-23 years ago, people. A can of soda cost $0.25 from a machine. Now they cost between $0.50 (if you're lucky) and $1.50 in most places.
      An 85 Mustang GT had an MSRP of ~$10,000. Now that's $24,330.

      Maybe these are bad examples. But I'm not sure what would be good ones.

      I also remember paying like $60 or something insane (at the time) like that for Super Mario Bros. 3 durring the quarter it was released in the U.S (1989 or 1990).
      • Both you and the parent are missing one of the main points of economics. I'll try to explain...

        Sure, you could pay $40 for an Apple II game back in the 1980's. Why? How long did it take to produce that game? How many people did it take to produce that game? How many Apple II's were there in the country/countries that the game would be sold in? Let's say it took 5 people (a lot for the 80's) 3 months to make a game. Let's assume that each of those people were paid $30,000 (a lot in the 80's) per year for t
    • I am willing to pay $60 for a Blizzard game that I know will be clean and well-concieved.

      As am I.

      I am however not willing to pay $60 dollars for any other game, aside from a new verison of Civilization that comes out.

      I buy a video game every week or 2, if they don't want my money, cool. My car could use a double overhead cam anyway.

  • And we fall for it? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:28PM (#6226994)
    Among others, more complex games and anti-piracy measures built into the media.

    We need to charge this much for games because so many are pirated. Now we need to charge you more because we're trying to negate that. I'd like to call them idiots but we consumers are the ones who keep falling for this stuff and teaching them that they can get away with it.

    The IRS could learn something here. *fears*

  • This is BS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rainier Wolfecastle ( 591298 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:35PM (#6227052)
    This is complete and utter bullshit. While I can sympathize with the fact that it costs more to develop a game these days, I don't see why that should affect the retail price in all cases. Maybe there companies that are spending upwards to $10 million to develop a game should ensure that the game is good so that they can recover their investment.

    The story mentions Enter the Matrix, which is a pretty crappy game. It seems that Shiny spent $20 million developing it. All I can say is "Boo Hoo." The game is still selling very well (over a million units in the U.S. alone), but it would have sold even more if the game was any good.

    I know that games and movies are vastly different, but consider this: I pay $10 to see a new movie release, regardless of the cost of production. Why should it be any different for games?

    If anything, game prices have to come down, so that Joe Sixpack can pick one up on a whim. $50 is a lot of money to plonk down for a game that might just suck enormous ass. Game prices need to come down for gaming to truly become a mainstream form of entertainment.
    • I know that games and movies are vastly different, but consider this: I pay $10 to see a new movie release, regardless of the cost of production. Why should it be any different for games?

      Because it's a diffrent business model. When you pay to SEE a movie, you're buying a service from a thater. Even if costs are diffrent, it's so little and diffacult to explain to the consumer that it's easier just o charge a flat rate per ticket. Note that there are exceptions: The IMAX theater I saw Reloaded at charge
    • I'm sure Microsoft would love to rent you Rise of Nations for 2 hours for $10. ;)

  • Bottom falling out from under your industry? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by neostorm ( 462848 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:38PM (#6227067)
    Games are already overpriced if you really take a look. With multiple consoles pulling players in multiple directions, a handheld system to accompany each of them (almost), and companies fluctuating in and out of existence on nearly a monthly basis, I smell a market crash coming...

    If someone releases a new ET game then it's a sure sign the end is near...

  • That's funny... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bluemeep ( 669505 ) <bluemeep@gmail . c om> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:51PM (#6227181) Homepage
    I rarely even pay more than $12.50 or so for a title. My secret? I wait until it's in the bargain bin. By that time it's cheap, all the critical bugs have been patched and my system is sufficiently powerful to run the game like a dream. If I get stuck, I can find plenty of FAQs and spoilers to see me through. Works like a charm for both PC and console games. Give it a try!

    Now if you'll excuse me, I have some skulking around to do in Thief Gold...at a 1024x768 resolution!

  • Protecting the Price Hike (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bovilexics ( 572096 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @05:56PM (#6227223) Homepage

    I have read a few insightful and interesting comments in reply to this article that are based on common sense. Mainly this...

    • If security is increased and piracy goes down, then price of games should go down as well because the reason for the high prices in the first place was to make up for loss of profits due to piracy.

    That makes complete sense if of course that was the real reason. I mean, come on, of course piracy wasn't the real reason behind high prices - duh! That is nothing but some marketing/PR spin to justify those high prices.

    I have another theory which I think also relies on common sense, but looks at it from a money-snagging business ploy that I would implement if I was in that industry. To me it makes perfect (business) sense to raise prices while increasing the level of security / anti-pirate technology. People are forced to pay the hiked up prices because it is now even more difficult to circumvent the protections in place, plus you have the added benefit of protection against circumvention thanks to the unbelievably awful DMCA.

    I mean you're all set...

    1. Force people to buy higher priced products (because they will anyway) under protection of obnoxious law
    2. Profit!

    There is no missing middle step, that's all it takes.

    Raise prices when people are forced to pay them and have less alternative options. Does this make the consumer happy? Of course not! But it sure does make the industry happy to see the extra money come in, because no matter how idealistic people like try be in saying, "That's the final straw, I'm not supporting this industry any more. They won't get my money!" - which will work for a small minority of people, but won't for the majority of people who will fork out more cash for the new games. The other unfortunate thing is that many games of late seem to be rushed to completion before they're ready and don't even deserve the higher prices on their own merit.

    Just my $.02

    • I mean you're all set...

      1. Force people to buy higher priced products (because they will anyway) under protection of obnoxious law
      2. Profit!

      There is no missing middle step, that's all it takes.

      Why do I hear Jeff Goldblum saying "There is no step three!"
    • People are not forced to pay them.

      As others have posted, and I have posted in the past, there is another viable option. Used and bargain bin games. the only thing forcing anyone to pay prices they consider inflated is their own idiocy, believing that they have to get whatever game they're interested on the day of release. If it's too expensive for you, wait until someone is offering it at a price you can afford.

      If you don't have the self control to not buy a game for more than you feel it's worth, seek
    • I've only read the modded posts...

      You have to ask yourself this question "If piracy stopped tomorrow, would the price of games fall?"

      I think anyone who answers 'yes' needs to think a bit harder.

  • What else is new (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gr33nNight ( 679837 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @06:00PM (#6227240)
    I remember paying $70 for Phantasy Star IV, and $60 for any RPG on the SNES. $50 prices on games is not really that bad nowadays, considering inflation and all.

    On the otherhand, there is Nintendo, who just lowered their fees for 3rd publishers. Sega is releasing alot of their exclusive GameCube games, for $40 (Viewtiful Joe, and Billy and the Giant Egg, come to mind). Now this is a great price for some kickass games (the demos rocked). $40 for a brand new Sega exclusive game.

    Hell yea.
    • Ditto that. I remember paying $74.99 for the Squaresoft game 'Secret of Mana' on the SNES. I also know I paid $69.99 for Street Fighter II Turbo. I understand the manufacturing costs for carts are a lot more than DVDs or miniDVDs, but then again they didn't have to worry about fancypants sound recording studios and video capture studios.

      I have no problems paying $5 or $10 more for a game if it's worthwhile. I paid $54 for Warcraft III when it came out last summer.

    • Viewtiful Joe is Capcom, not Sega. It's also planned to cost the full $50 [gamestop.com] - not that that should deter you from a purchase.

      However, the Sega games, including Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg [gamestop.com] and Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut [gamestop.com] are/will be $40.

    • Re:What else is new (Score:2, Informative)

      by Gr33nNight ( 679837 )
      Ah yes, Joe is Capcom (part of the exclusive Capcom 5), but I did know it was $40 :)
    • Remember when the SegaCD came out, and everyone kept saying how CD's were cheaper to make than big bulky cartridges, so moving to an all-CD platform would be cheaper! After all, it costs a few pennies to stamp a CD if you do a huge production run.

      What the neglected to mention is that the companies completely realized this, and took the "savings" for themselves, along with any extra profits they could take.

      I can fully understand charging more because it takes more to make the game (I mean hell, Phantasy St
    • I remember paying $70 for Phantasy Star IV, and $60 for any RPG on the SNES. $50 prices on games is not really that bad nowadays, considering inflation and all.

      This rarely had anything to do with the cost of making the game itself, but rather with the cost of producing the cartridge for the game. You were basically paying to have a memory card embedded in that cartridge that could save your progress for you. Remember inputting codes in Metroid to get to the point you were at last in that game?

      The standa

  • US Console Price Drops Widely Rumored [slashdot.org]: Gamecube $99, PS2 $149, XBox $149

    Nintendo Bundles GBA Adaptor With Gamecube [slashdot.org]: Gamecube $149

    Sony's Pre-E3 Press Briefing Summarized [slashdot.org]: PS2 $179

    Microsoft Announces Price Cut For Xbox [slashdot.org]: XBox $179

    Analyst Predicts Further Console Price Cuts [slashdot.org]: ???

    Capcom, Sega Drop Gamecube Software Prices [slashdot.org]: games $40

    Console Game Prices Going Up? [slashdot.org]: games $60

    Is anyone else getting confused? Perhaps the analysts don't know what they are talking about.

    • Re:I'm Confused (Score:2, Informative)

      by gmhowell ( 26755 )
      Pretty straightforward: hardware price going down, software price going up. Give away the razor, sell the blades. Especially when the development cost of the razor has been paid for by early adopters.

  • Prices in Ireland (Score:2, Informative)

    by lbedford ( 30984 )
    $60? Count yourselves lucky. Game (UK retail chain) and Electronics Boutique (the UK retail chain bought out by Game, not the US one) charge 65 to 70 EUR here. Even PC games are up to 50 EUR a go :(

    (Even second hand games are 45-50 EUR)

    Fortunately there are some independent shops which don't charge such stupid prices.
    • same in england as well, worst thing is there is an lectronics boutique store about 30m from another store with cheaper prices, and by cheaper I mean £5 to £10 (on new games) yet people are to lazy to walk the extra 30 metres to save the money, plus the cheaper shop has better selection, people are idiots.
    • The price level is the same in Sweden.
      Is this the general rule or an exception? What do console games cost in the rest of Europe?

      Why are we getting shafted worse than the US and asian markets?
    • Simple answer, buy elsewhere, for instance you can pre-order Half Life 2 for £25 ($42, EUR 36) from Amazon.

      Personally I think that is about the right price point, at £25 a game most people wouldn't see the incentive to pay to have their box modded and find a source of pirated games, and hope that the games work.

      I've just got an xbox and don't intend to buy any full price games unless I'm particularly flushed that month, far cheaper to trade in the games I've completed / don't l
  • Here in NZ, games are typically $100-$120 for most titles. Resident Evil for the Gamecube was going for $139.95 when it came out. Gaming isn't a cheap hobby, unfortunately...

  • And how is this news? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NetDanzr ( 619387 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @06:34PM (#6227466)
    Consider the following:

    1980s and early 1990s games: box contained a game, a thick manual, and usually some extras, such as a cloth map, a booklet with background informations or cut-outs of spaceships (Wing Commander series). Price per game: $50

    2001-03 games: Box, which is much smaller (in the case of Europeans a DVD box even for PC games) contains a game and a thin booklet with installation instructions. The manual is on the CD; no extras. Price: $50.

    Prices of games have already gone up. What I described, however, is only the most visible indication. You also have games that start at $60 (Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft III), or "special editions" that can cost as much as $80 and have box contents roughly equal to those of games that cost $50 ten years ago. In addition, the dollar spent per hour of gameplay is increasing all the time. Where you spent anywhere between 25 and 50 cents per hour of gameplay ten to fifteen years ago, you now spend up to $5 per hour of gameplay on titles like Command & Conquer: Renegade and Unreal II. That means that where you spent maybe $50 per month on games, you spend the same amount per week these days, or even more. Games are already enormously expensive, compared to a decade ago, but people didn't notice. The publishers used the ages-old strategy to decrease the amount of sold, while keeping the price stable, and it worked. Unfortunately for them, there is very little left to cut away from games, and so they have to resort to increasing the prices.

    • Ever heard of inflation?

      Games sometimes come with extras these days. But it's not as common as most people don't care. I miss the extras that came with the Wing Commander games, they were cool. But it's the games that made them really cool.

      You're saying that games have stayed at $50 since the 1980s That's not staying the same, that's a steady DECREASE in price!

      I can remember paying a lot for new hot release games. $60 (or was it more?) for SMB3 when it came out. $70 for a shity Star Trek The Next Ge
      • Yup, I know of inflation. That's a very common argument in favor of increasing the game prices, and I must say it is a very valid argument. Where I and those who support that argument differ is the definition of the price of the game. I view the price of a game as an amount paid for an hour of entertainment. After all, games are entertainment products, just like movies and books, and I view them as pretty good substitutes. Others view the price for a game only by what's on the label. Following the lat
        • There's all kinds of diffrent ways of measuring this.

          One can argue that a game like Shadowgate may have given you 20 hours of play time inisially (or 40 or 100, depending) but that it's not worth ever picking up again after beating it.

          Super Mario 3 on the other hand can be beaten for the first time in just a few hours by a good player. But it has enormous replay value. I still play it today.

          The same can be said for gams today. I rented Luigi's Mansion. The game is georgous, and I didn't put it down u
  • Actually, It make more sense with the two articles in mind.

    Could it be a move a la "printer (a.k.a. razor) business model"? Give the hardware, then make it back on the software (using royalties).
  • > "Get ready for $60 Halo II."

    Yeah, and get ready for me not buying it. The price of console games has been getting awful! Personally, I just live a year or two behind the new release schedule, and get games out of the bargain/used section for much cheaper.
  • Fire the whole damn marketing division in your games development house, cancel all anti-piracy measures and contracts, drop region coding and produce a single version in a single factory then pass on the savings in the form of cheaper games prices.

    Damn, there's some stupid crap that makes up the high prices in games. Actually, anyone got a cute little pie-chart showing where the money goes when you buy a, say, PS2 game? I bet marketing is at least a 3rd.

  • ...hence the reason M$ isn't getting my money for an Xbox. I'll live without Halo 2, thank you very much. :)

    Honestly, though, I had heard (about six months ago, but still) that Sony was going to announce a $39.99 price point for the PS2 games and that people were hoping M$ and Nintendo would follow. Has anyone heard more about that?

    • No company makes profit on their consoles. Nearly every console is sold at a loss and the profit is made from game sales and licensing fees.
      This is why the console sales can drop, but game sales raise. They're not really losing any money from it as long as people continue to buy games. If you take a $50 loss on each piece of hardware, and each person buys at least 1 $60 piece of software to use on that hardware, you're making $10 of profit for each sale.

      • Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:2, Informative)

        by MaverickUW ( 177871 )
        Don't tell me we're back to this. Your statement is simply not true at all. X-box and Ps2 have been sold at a loss, but the Nintendo Gamecube, Gameboy Advance, and the Gameboy Advance SP have NEVER during their entire life cycles yet been sold for a loss whatsoever. Nintendo is making the Gamecube's right now for only about $50, so even giving away a free game, they still make over $50 a console sold in profit.

        The original Gameboy Advance, they were able to lower the cost point of that down so low that
        • It was a generalization in an attempt to explain the basic working theory behind console game sales. I was not using real numbers, and you overlooked the *If* in my main point, which was a hypothetical explanation.

          "If you take a $50 loss..."

          Also, I should have specifically said set-top consoles, so I appologize for that misunderstanding. I was not referring to handhelds. I wasn't aware of the gamecubes being so cheap, but aside from that the majority of consoles in gaming history (Atari 2600 to the SNE
        • The GameCube is cheap, but I've heard more like $100 than $50. The GameCube is a more powerful system than the PS2, so I can't see that huge of a price difference between them. But it still would be significant, as the GC drive can only read GC discs, whereas the PS2 has a second laser for readings CDs, plus also includes DVD playback licensing fees.

          Nintendo's royalty rates are rumored to be as follows (according to IGN): Publishers must pay a licensing fee of $10 to Nintendo for games with a $50 MSRP, $8.
        • And losses for the two consoles being sold at a loss are supposed to currently be over $50... so no, one game does not make up for selling a console at a loss. Normally, It is 6-8 games that is considered the point for breaking even

          No one's stupid enough to sell at such a high loss that it takes 6-8 games to break even. Shortly after the XBox came out Microsoft made a very big deal about having the highest attach rate (# of games sold per console) for a console within the first X number of months (think i
          • Actually, if you listen to Microsoft's strategy, they don't care if the X-box breaks even. Put it this way: Through the last financial cycle, counting sales of hardware and games, Microsoft has lost half a billion dollars on the X-box. If you read one of the earlier replies that said $10 a copy royalties for a $50 game, and Microsoft was losing between 100-150 a console at the start of the X-box's system life, it would take 10-15 games just to break even. Attach rate is also only counting first few mont
      • "Don't tell me we're back to this. Your statement is simply not true at all. X-box and Ps2 have been sold at a loss, but the Nintendo Gamecube, Gameboy Advance, and the Gameboy Advance SP have NEVER during their entire life cycles yet been sold for a loss whatsoever. Nintendo is making the Gamecube's right now for only about $50, so even giving away a free game, they still make over $50 a console sold in profit."

        does that include development costs?

  • MSNBC (Score:2, Funny)

    by KU_Fletch ( 678324 )
    It's a sad day when we're getting video game news from MSNBC. It seems like anybody with half a credential could send out a news release "predicting" a price change and some news outlet would report it. Don't believe the hype until Sony/Big N/MS say something.

  • Where's The Evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NOspaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @10:11PM (#6229158) Homepage
    I didn't see a single thing in that article that points to higher prices coming for video games besides the opinion of one marketing analyst. The articles says that this guy "has been tracking some of the biggest players in the industry." Yeah, and so have I. And MY tracking indicates that not only is there no evidence that prices are going to go up (they've remained static for YEARS) but there's every possibility that prices could go down (as an example, I bought GTA Vice City in its first week at $40).

    MY analysis, were I so bold as to make one, would including looking at a similar industry and the trends there: VHS/DVD sales. Specifically, when pre-recorded VHS movies hit the market, they were sold entirely for the purpose of rental. The prices would start at around $50 and peak at around $100 per copy. Once enough people had VCRs and production costs for VHS tapes had dropped enough, movie studios took a look at the market and wondered if they could actually get people to BUY the movies. ET debuts at $20 (discounted soon after to $15) and just about everybody ran out and got a copy. Seeing that they had something there, everyone started jumping on the bandwagon. By the time DVDs started their meteoric rise BRAND NEW VHS movies could be had for $10-15 a piece and bargain bins were filled with videos between $5-10 each. DVD has followed suit, though much faster because of the incredibly rapid adoption of the format by consumers.

    Even more on point, one could look at the prices of Atari 2600 games. Those prices dropped significantly once the 2600 reached a critical mass where just about everybody had one - and those were on cartridges which are more expensive to produce than DVDs. (Prices also fell when the video game market went to pot but we'll ignore that here.)

    If we then look at video games, it's clear that a similar result is on the horizon. While it's unlikely that top-flight games are going to drop as low as $20 a piece (they don't get box office revenues like movies do), the number of consoles in use today is so much larger than it ever has been that even a bad PS2 game can sell 50,000 units ($2.5 million retail) in the US and great games can sell into the millions. If console makers ever manage to understand the potential benefits, they could all change their royalty structures (as Nintendo recently has) and a $10 price drop across the board could end up spurring even more sales. A $10 price increase, on the other hand, will likely show an even more significant negative effect.

    Obviously, I'm no market analyst so you can take my thoughts and words with a grain of salt. But I certainly wouldn't give any more weight to the ideas of a single market analyst (and a writer who was probably desperate for a story and happened to see a press release) who, unless he has access to actual top executives who are TELLING HIM that prices are going to go up, is also just talking out his ass.

    If prices do happen to go up $10, I expect that they'll drop right back down once they see what I expect will be a chilling result on sell-through.

    • I hate replying to myself, but I have this side-note: I think it far more likely that, considering the development costs associated with current video games, fewer games will end up being developed in the future, or there will be a LOT more standardization in terms of graphic engines and other portable code. We'll just have to hope that those fewer games include the really good games and not the really average/bad games.
  • this article actually said that no one would complain if top end games jumped up $10 in price. I SURE AS HELL WOULD! they also said no one cared that socom (misspelled in the article as "socum") navy seals was retailing for $60. i dont know about anyone else, but i wasnt happy about that! however, i accepted it b/c the box contained a headset for the game, which is useful and i would accept paying an extra $10 for that. also, as someone else above me pointed out, most new games have smaller packages and co
  • Is there an industry association for games yet? Cuz I know I've seen more than a few computer games (and ISO's) on the P2P services. If there isn't somethign akin tot he RIAA/MPAA for games yet, there sure as hell will be.

    Remember kids, playing a game that you didn't pay for at your friends house is STEALING!

  • "more complex games and anti-piracy measures built into the media. Get ready for $60 Halo II."

    What is this guy talking about? Seriously, there are no new anti-piracy techniques on Halo 2, XBOX games all use the same standard that hasn't even been cracked yet. Citing piracy as a reason for price hike is just moronic, as it will driv3 the pirates to want to pirate the game even more, by principle or just not wanting to pay the extra $10. Most consoles don't have much of a problem with piracy anyways, where
    • There are mod chips for the XBox. The encryption hasn't been broken though, so if Halo 2 detects the old style mod chips they won't work anymore. Though I say this with little knowledge about the Xbox because i can't afford one...

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