Sony Hints At Higher Priced Games 335
Sony's Kaz Hirai hints that, in addition to the $600 console, we may have even more expensive games to look forward to. From the Gamasutra article: "I don't think consumers expect software pricing to suddenly double. So, the quick answer is that we want to make it as affordable as possible, knowing that there is a set consumer expectation for what software has cost for the past twelve years. That's kind of the best answer I can give you. So, if it becomes a bit higher than $59, don't ding me, but, again, I don't expect it to be $100."
Already too Expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
As such - I just (finally?) nabbed a copy of Baldur's Gate 2 with expansion for $10. Rise of Nations is also "budget" now... and their single-player mode really adds more than the typical "keep replaying random map".
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
I also troll the local gamestops for good used PS2 games. Recently purchased God of War for around $14.99 used. While I enjoy the game, I would have felt very disappointed if I had paid full price for it.
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
It's amazing how easy it is to afford 3 systems at once and new games 2 or 3 times a week -- if, at this point, you are just discovering Xbox and Gamecube (like me)
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
When a game has been out for a long time, and you just jump in, the on-line experience usually sucks.
1- There is a good chance that many of the players have been playing for years. They know every trick, every little nuance. You don't have much of a chance to beat them. If a good player takes you under their wing (fat chance in a competitive game) you won't get to discover the game yourself, and learn things that very few other people have discovered.
2- Possibly the game wasn't too popular, but it is just something that people throw in when they're bored. They don't care about the game. They are much more likely to be griefers.
3- Maybe nobody plays anymore.
For a person who does about 80% of their gaming on-line, used budget games aren't a very good option.
Yes, of course some people are still playing Counterstrike, or Quake...my answer to that is, "geez dude, aren't you sick of that game yet?"
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
I love my StarCraft. Like more than a friend. No seriously. I actually made a live linux CD with little more than X, wine, sound drivers and StarCraft.
I'm picturing an advert:
Picture a guy with all-too-white teeth, a condescending voice, and a propensity for giving the "Thumbs Up". Like a used car salesman without the f
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:2)
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Already too Expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
If I knew that every time I was spending $70 that I'd get at least 50 hours of entertainment, I'd happily spend that money. But I've been disappointed enough times that I really think a purchase like t
Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Funny)
Might be their perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Even so, it would seem as if there are some fans who would still buy the system and games even if they continued to raise the price.
Re:Might be their perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
If everybody thinks it will be $600 then you can put it out at $500 (still most expensive) and call it 20% off.
Works for clothing stores (200% markup, 25% off sale moves product pretty quickly).
Re:Might be their perspective (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Might be their perspective (Score:2)
Re:Might be their perspective (Score:2)
Re:Great idea (Score:2)
RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
A) in response to Activision's making a fuss that games should be more expensive, since apparently Activision's development costs are too high to be covered even by $59, and
B) all that the Sony guy basically says is along the lines of "well, we can't go much higher than $59, because people expect games to be between $59 and $39. We can't suddenly price a game at $99, because noone would buy it. Even if we could slightly increase the price, it would be at most a very small increase, not what Activision wants."
Basically that's all there. It's _not_ about Sony wanting to raise game prices, it's Sony telling Activision "dude, put down the bong, we _can't_ sell your games for $99." I.e., pretty much the opposite of what the Slashdot summary says.
What are they thinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone's smoking something, and if it screws up their logic this badly, I might just want some.
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:5, Informative)
Who do Sony think they're kidding? If a game costs as much as £70 I think a lot of people are going to look at our price of £99.99 for a DS Lite and a game and think "Woah, I'm being screwed".
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:2)
Wow, $90 American (thanks google!) I'm damn glad I don't live in the UK. Of course I don't buy console games anyway, but I'm guessing these prices reflect on PC games as well.
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:2)
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:2)
Um, what?! Whether 'rigged' or not, the Killzone demo was easily, easily the most impressive game demo at E3.
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:4, Informative)
Now as far as the grandparent post is considered, saying something like "Sony has no answer for Halo 3" is useless. Sony had no answer for Halo or Halo 2 and the PS2 was still the top console in this past generation. Which makes me think that no matter how great Gears of War is, it's not going to convert too many people since if you're a big FPS fan you already have or plan to own an Xbox or Xbox 360 (or you have a nice PC rig).
I think the percieved problem (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem isn't if they have something specific as a Halo 3 response, the problem is if Halo 3 (and the Wii launch) are able to take enough of the wind out of their sales and really cripple PS3 adoption. Consoles are very much a feedback cycle. The more people that own them, the more interest there is in making games for them (because of mroe sales). More games drives more ownership and so on.
Already the game industry is a bit skeptical of the PS3. Between the shifting information, the delays, the price, and the slow dev kits, there's concern about it. If MS and/or Nintendo successfully deal a major blow to the launch, that could really screw them over all because it could convince devs that the PS3 isn't worth porting to, or at the very least isn't worth going exclusive on. That alone could be enough to ensure that it isn't all that successful, and given the amount of R&D dumped in it, they need a deceant success to see black on the project.
This isn't a doomsday scenario or anything, but it's a real concern. MS is not stupid and they know a thing or two about crushign competitors. Don't put it past them to go full court press and try to fuck over Sony's launch in every way possible.
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's also intsructive to note that the Killzone screenshots etc looked awesome. A few rational people queried how such graphics would actually move, given it was a PS2 game, but they were largely ignored. Then again, screenshots always look better when you render them at 4x actual game resolution, if you know what I mean.
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:2)
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, what they're doing is shooting themselves in the foot with good ol' fashioned Sony internal collusion coupled with braindead premises. They are falsely assuming that the success of the PS3 is not in question, and tying its success to Blu-Ray's on that premise.
The PS2's success, in my mind, was a factor of its large library of games, backwards compatibility, earlier launch date and relative cheapness compared to the XBox. The PS3 is more expensive, is delayed indefinitely, and does not exclusive
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:2)
Oh, give it to me, give it to me! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, give it to me, give it to me! (Score:2)
(Sorry, "your mom" jokes are like the lowest form of humor, but boy did you walk into this one.)
Re:Oh, give it to me, give it to me! (Score:4, Informative)
I know it as "Sadism [www.m-w.com] & Masochism [www.m-w.com]".
Re:Oh, give it to me, give it to me! (Score:2)
The Masochist moans, "Hurt me!"
The Sadist replies, "No."
Marketer speak (Score:4, Funny)
*KAPOW* (Score:3, Funny)
Re:*KAPOW* (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, you mean it will play GAMES, too? (Score:2, Troll)
Wow! I really do get to pay more to do less with Sony! I can't wait.
Re:Wait, you mean it will play GAMES, too? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully they'll get that fixed before companies start enforcing the downsample flag...
Also (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Also (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Also (Score:2)
Hit games shouldn't be expensive, except early (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hit games shouldn't be expensive, except early (Score:2)
Because it colors the perceptions of those who think $100 is a ludicrous amount, so that even after you lower the price they won't buy your product because you've already turned them off?
Like-a-so:
"$100 for a game?! No way!"
"Hey, remember that $100 game? It's now only $70!"
"That's still expensive, not that I care. I bought a 360."
But other than t
Re:Hit games shouldn't be expensive, except early (Score:5, Insightful)
You really don't want to train people to know that you're going to drop the price of something within a few weeks. It's one thing to know that you could wait a year and spend $30 to get the game you're about to spend $50 on. It's another thing entirely to know that you could wait a month and spend $50 to get the game you're about to spend $80 on.
A lot more people will be willing to wait month to save $30 than a year to save $20. All you're going to do, ultimately, is drive down sales within the first few weeks of release.
It would probably work for the first couple games they did it with, sure...but even the American buying public would catch on to quick follow-on price drops. Note how, even today, MS denies that they have any plans to drop the price on the 360 when the PS3 launches, despite the fact that it's so painfully obvious that anyone with two neurons firing in synch is pretty sure they will.
But you never, ever, want people to believe (much less know) that the thing they're about to buy will be cheaper just a little bit down the road.
Re:Hit games shouldn't be expensive, except early (Score:2)
This is exactly what Nintendo's president is worried about here [eurogamer.net], although he's even worried about 6 month or 9 month typical discounting. I agree with him on that -
Also (Score:2)
Well that impression can get formed on inital pricing, even if you lower it later. That was one half of the equation as to why MS kept the 360 price low, even though it's clear they could have gotten more. They didn't want people getting the
Re:Hit games shouldn't be expensive, except early (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the market dictates the price, and ultimately if the fans want it badly enough they'll pay.
That doesn't mean this is a pleasant turn of events. People are used to the normal $49 pricepoint since the days of Atari, and even getting used to $59 will take some time.
Re:Hit games shouldn't be expensive, except early (Score:2, Informative)
The Mystical Marketing Gun of Sony (Score:5, Funny)
Price: Credibility and market share.
Weight penalty: Ponderous, especially to those with foot damage.
You know... (Score:2)
Stands to reason (Score:3, Interesting)
So, two games will buy a Wii, one and a half get a DS lite. Apparently Sony has taken the "There is only one PS3" slogan to heart, literally. If they sell one I'll be astounded.
Re:Stands to reason (Score:2)
No he didn't hint at anything (Score:4, Informative)
He was asked about prices going higher. He didn't bring it up. He didn't say they would go higher. He didn't hint they would go higher. He meerly refused to rule it out as a possibility in an uncertain future.
Re:No he didn't hint at anything (Score:2)
Re:No he didn't hint at anything (Score:2)
No surprise.
It's still worth pointing out that the article is essentially dishonest.
Make the comparison then (Score:4, Insightful)
Sony? "Well, we doubt they'll get up to $100".
There's a reason people are fed up with what's coming out of Sony currently.
Re:No he didn't hint at anything (Score:2)
Logical Course for Sony (Score:2)
I admit, I laughed when I first
Re:Logical Course for Sony (Score:2)
Erm... most consoles are sold at profit. Well that's the idea anyway.
Microsoft sell XBox at a loss but they have a monopoly in another market and are rolling in loads of cash. They can afford to take a huge loss if they think they can believe they can get close to 100% market share. At which point the price will skyrocket due to lack of competition and they will be making more profit than you can ever dream of.
So... no.
Re:Logical Course for Sony (Score:2)
PS3 will be sold at a loss, like the PS2, the PSP, the Gamecube, the Sega Saturn.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060219-621 6
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may20 06/id20060501_525587.htm?chan=innovation_game+room _top+stories [businessweek.com]
Loss Leader described on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader [wikipedia.org]
Video game console makers that sell their console units at very low margins, or even at a loss, to achieve a high
Sony repeating Neo*Geo's history again... (Score:2, Interesting)
Honestly... (Score:4, Interesting)
* -- Don't end sentences with prepositions, kids.
Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:4, Insightful)
People, by and large, do not factor the devaluation of money between then and now into their price comparisons. For example, consider gas prices - everyone complains about them, despite the fact that they're actually lower (in terms of real dollars) than they were 25 years ago.
Yet you'll always hear the stories about how "I remember when a gallon of gas was fifty cents!"
Video games are the same way. They've been in the $50 range for a long time, and people are therefore acclimated to that price point. It doesn't really matter that $50 for a game in 1995 was more money than $50 is now.
According to a calculator I found online (grain of salt, but it passes my smell test and I can't be arsed to really research this just now), $200 in 1985 translates to $363 in 2005. Which means that the premium XBox 360 is a whole $36 more expensive than the NES (and the core system $63 cheaper!), in terms of real purchasing power. This has not stopped plenty of people complaining about its price.
Of course, anyone who figures real purchasing power into the equation is right, when you come down to it...but it doesn't matter when it comes to what drives the purchasing public to either pull the trigger or not on a new toy.
Re:Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:3, Insightful)
A calculator you found online? I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you mean this little thing [eh.net] (which returns your answer as $363.01). So you have nothing to fear. From the source note:
Th
Re:Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:2)
Re:Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why they shouldn't complain if they want to, as far as the console itself goes. The cost of electronics has been going down steadily since the 80s, both absolute and inflation adjusted. This is because producing them has become cheaper. In the late 80s a PC would cost thousands of dollars; today you can get one for $500 at Walmart. A game console in 2005 costing the same as a game console in 1985 after adjusting for inflation isn't impressive in the least. So if people percieve the price of the 360 as too high, well, there's some basis for that. Personally I don't think it's bad.
For games it is easy to see that they have actually gone up in cost to produce, so it isn't surprising that their purchase cost has gone up. I think this gets to people because they have the reasonable expectation based on experience that technology should go down in price (or stay the same in absolute dollars and thus become cheaper due to inflation), and they see the games as being an extension of that technology. This is the acclimation you're talking about. Or maybe they're like me. I certainly appreciate that games cost more to produce, but honestly I don't care. Telling me how many millions a game cost to produce doesn't make the $100 or whatever price any lower, and doesn't make me want to pay that high a price either.
Re:Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:4, Insightful)
But those are all things that a modern low-end PC has which a PC in 1985 didn't. Including in many cases the hard drive; my friend's multi-kilo-buck computer had two 3.5" floppy drives to work with. Electronics have gotten so much cheaper that we can have many more components in them and still have them be cheaper than they ever were before. So the 360 costing the same as a 1985 console is really not impressive at all -- or unimpressive, my point being that whether or not it is expensive should be based on the analysis of today, not compared to 1985 before the PC revolution really took off.
Re:Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:2)
In a perfect world, inflation and cost reduction would cancel each other out for everything. For things like video games, it somewhat has; although the the development costs have skyrocketed up, the cost of the actual media, shipping, and distribution has become cheaper, and so with more gamers buying games the sale price changes little (percentage wise.)
With commodities suc
Re:Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:2)
The cost to develop a game does not go up significantly as the number of copies sold rises...
Re:Let's not even mention "real dollars" (Score:2)
Development Model (Score:2)
Why it won't work (Score:2)
Here's a hot tip for price whiners (Score:2)
If you can train yourself to not give a rats ass about hype, gaming is cheap, cheap, cheap.
Eventually EVERYTHING ends up in the $20 bin, maybe even in the $10 bin. I remember hearing what a great fantastical game MGS2 was for the PS2, well guess what, I saw it for 6.99 and picked it up. It's pretty good.
Sure I'm playing stuff thats months, and often years old, but fun games are still fun, and it saves me a ton of cash.
Browse the older pages on
Re:Here's a hot tip for price whiners (Score:2)
Re:Here's a hot tip for price whiners (Score:2)
We're all aware of that, and most of us do that from time to time. But there's also some value/enjoyment in getting your hands on something brand new, and getting to be among the first to experience it. It is, after all, entertainment - and not anything you HAVE to buy/own. If you get a kick o
Re:Here's a hot tip for price whiners (Score:2)
I bought an XBOX in early '02, only because the "Buffy The Vampire" slayer video game had gone from multi-platform to XBOX exclusive. Up until then, there hadn't been a single game that interested me. I've never had any PS, and my last console before that was a N64 that I had sold to someone a few years back. I only gamed on the PC at that point (from a youth growing up playing Nintendo and Sega).
Over the past four years, I've bought less than five XBOX games; frankly, most of them ju
Not all video games end up in the bargain bin (Score:2)
O rly? What about Rez and Chrono Trigger and Earthbound? Or by "eventually" are you talking about timescales longer than a human lifetime [wikipedia.org]?
Too expensive for rental places to stock (Score:2, Interesting)
The Higher the Price of the Game (Score:5, Insightful)
He went on to say... (Score:5, Funny)
This is Sony after all... (Score:2, Insightful)
UK prices (Score:2)
£425 for PS3 console.
Probably £60 for one game.
Factor in the fact that you won't be able to buy just the console on its own for the first few months, and will be forced to buy a bundle with a load of crap you don't actually want - let's say that's another £50 of 'value added' material.
Total: £535.
As the saying goes, fuck that!
Hype? (Score:2)
They must know that competing with PCs is a bad idea (with a $600 tag it is, anyway), and that set-top boxes are a losing industry. So what else can the PS3 be? A glorified modern-day Commodore?
Re:Hype? (Score:2)
PS3 is $500 (Score:2)
hmmm (Score:2)
Gradually starting to look that way - stupidly overpriced console, overpriced games, hype about being the best next gen platform around...
I wish them the best of luck with that (this coming from someone who's been a massive ps1/ps2 fan over the years)...
Maybe they know what they're doing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's my take on Sony's strategy.
I. Soak the early adopters for as much cash as possible.
II. Follow the launch with a rapid and drastic price drop for both consoles and games.
III. Profit.
After all Sony ma
Re:Thanks for clearing that up. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Thanks for clearing that up. (Score:2)
Re:Solution!!! (Score:2, Redundant)
I've already got that! It's the socket the Wii plugs into that I need.
(Am I the only Nintendo fandboy who loves the name because of all the penis jokes?)
Re:Solution!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Man, if you're not liking the price of the PS3, just wait till you see the price of these sockets!
Re:Sony is trying hard to lose the console war (Score:5, Interesting)
High Definition is such a stupid direction the industries taking. People don't care, they aren't flocking to Best Buy to upgrade. I'm a geek who's into and actually understands all this crap, HDMI, 1080i vs 1080p, and so on, and I don't care. I really don't give a rats ass about high-definition anything, it doesn't improve the experience of TV, movies or console video games.
So Sony and MSFT have hitched their wagons to the HDTV "revolution" that isn't going to take place. They can only force upgrades, a la "buy a PS3 because we aren't making PS2 games anymore".
Now, Wii is different, watching the videos of the guy playing Red Steel, made me wonder "why didn't we have that before?" It looks like such a natural way to play an FPS, it looks like it may even be SUPERIOR to a keyboard and mouse. I'll have to wait and see. It seems like more of a gimmick, and something that will be here to stay. The first time I saw the NES control pad, I thought it was a cheesy gimmick, and could never replace the Wico Command Control I used with my C64. Games are played with joysticks, not stupid little boxes with buttons to move, I thought. I was wrong.
Wii and it's wii-mote are something different, and flunk or fail, actually innovative.
Of course it's all about the games, and a "killer app" can change everything overnight. Halo was MSFT's crutch for the XBox, but that seems like a fluke. It won't happen again with Halo 3. So far I see nothing coming down the pipe from Sony or MSFT that piques my interest. But damnit, I want to play some FPS with that pointer, and I want to be able to cheaply download some of nintendo's past hits. Right up my alley.
IMO, Wii is the only truly "next generation" system. It actually offeres something evolutionary over the last generation. All PS3 and XBox 360 seem to have is high prices, faulty hardware, and "new features" that would cost me 5 grand to be able to use.
I think Sony and MSFT going the high-end route is going to hurt them, and Nintendo just might rise back to the top. They seem most likely to put out the next "killer app" at this point.
Re:Sony is trying hard to lose the console war (Score:2)
it should be pointed out that part of it is 9/11. What? 9/11? yes, the gov wants to clear out the frequencies used by analog TV and give it to emergency responders as a uniform frequencey for communication. That is why there is a analog cutof date that is in the law.
Re:Heres my theory... (Score:2)
Re:Finally (Score:2)
You: Hey baby I got a PS3!
Drunk Woman: No they are about C cups, stop staring at my boobs please.
You: It's only $600, see I'm loaded babe.
Drunk Woman: Buy me a drink then.
You: Sure (calls over bartender) Apple martini for the lady and a Jack and Coke for me.
Drunk Woman: Thanks for the martini babe! (makes out with bartender)
You: (Go home, j*rk off, play Katamari Damacy 3 on your HDTV in 1080p and 7.1 surround sound until 7am when your blackberry goes off and your boss tell
Re:Finally (Score:2)
Excuse me while I laugh my ass off.
As i said in a previous post - i wish sony the best of luck with that.
However, history shows they