Comment Re:Smokescreen (Score 1) 383
The price on a console game is usually set by the console manufacturers. So the launch of all games is usually the ~$60 (depending on country). As the game gets older it'll start to drop in price. Microsoft and Sony set the launch price to be the same, and they also set the licensing costs to be about the same. I don't know the normal price of licensing for the console but I think its something like $10 per disc sold, because they sell the consoles at a loss and make up their profit on this licensing. And when you use the rule of thumb that the price of a product doubles every time it changes hands then this $10 is a fair amount of the cost of a game, since it has to change hands at least once. The publishers probably sell the game to Walmart and Gamestop at $30 and they sell at $60, and with the publishers giving a third to Microsoft and Sony they aren't taking as much in as you think. The third also matches pretty closely to what Microsoft and Sony take for digital revenue on their consoles, so the $10 is probably pretty close.
Nintendo makes a profit on the hardware so their licensing isn't so extreme and the games for the Wii are usually cheaper. You'll sometimes see games for higher prices then the $60 launch price, but these are usually games with extras: special edition, controller in the box, etc.