Quote:According to Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, you could be paying an extra 10 dollars for top titles by the end of this year. An MSNBC report tells why it may be possible, even though most analysts agree that most game makers want to keep software prices where they are. In a case against the increase in game prices, studies of the 'life cycle' model of previous consoles and the current next-generation consoles show that new games stick at a higher price, but old games and relatively unknown games get slashed prices. GameCube, PS2, and Xbox are entering the second half of their life cycle, the period where price points in hardware and software trend downward. But what isn't happening is development costs declining as developers reach the technical limits of the platform. “Research and development costs continue to go up,” said Richard Ow, a game analyst for the NPD Group. A typical Playstation game in 1996 cost less than $1 million to make and sold for $49. Today the console games run around $5-7 million per title and sell for $49.99.
Development costs have risen because the 128-bit generation requires at least 40 times as many lines of codes to exploit the system capabilities as the previous console generation. “To keep pushing the limits, that not only takes more people, but better people,” Perry said. “Great development staff are therefore becoming more and more valuable, and as our industry moves to Playstation 3, Xbox 2, etc., then they will be at a new premium,” he said. Game creators are also adding costly exclusives video footage for Enter The Matrix to grab peoples attentions, and licensed material. Then there's marketing to handle. "With so many costs built into production," said Halpin of the game retailing group, "a triple-A game price change in favor of higher prices and higher margin or lower prices and higher sales would not be easy. Right now it’s too much a part of philosophy in way of conducting business. Especially for public companies. They would need to re-scale their economics.”
The other problem is there isn't much complaining of the game prices. “There just doesn’t seem to be negative reaction to game prices,” said Ow. “Even if one publisher took the chance to lower the price of a triple-A game, it could bias the consumer that it’s a lesser game." "Game publishers don’t understand consumers, they understand video games,” he added. “Prices never go down. People don’t have a problem with prices going up, the publishers do.” Over the next year, about 750 new titles will hit the market. "If past sales figures offer any clues," said Pachter, "the top 50 to 60 games will rake in 50 percent of the total sales. Once you see those numbers, it’s easy to see that half could command a $60 price point. The thing that may counteract all of this is the fact that game sales have risen tremendously. $10 billion was spent by Americans on hardware and software. The conclusion they come to is if one publisher sells a very popular title for $60 and thus makes a killing on sales, publishers with similar titles may follow.
Quote:People don’t have a problem with prices going up
No, I think most people DO have a problem with prices going up.
N-Philes
Very, very doubtful.. I'd expect them to go down, not up... bigger sales numbers and intense competition will keep prices low.
It is true that games have been $50 for many years, and before that were actually HIGHER on the console front, which when added to inflation means easier on the wallet prices... but because of competition I don't see that changing.
If when games cost $1 mill to make those companies could still turn a profit, and now they cost $7 mill to make and they can get by, ALL THAT TELLS ME IS THAT we were being fucked royally back in 1996! They deserve this problem, methinks.
And what about in the early 90's when some games cost nearly $100?!
Exactly! I still can't believe I had to pay over $100 for Chrono Trigger and over $70 for Final Fantasy 6 back then! Though, I suppose I would do it again... :D
Carts are very expensive to make. The prices weren't that out of line when you consider costs.
Hmm, that extra ten dollars is not going to stay on just new releases and hot titles. Give it a few more months, and the price will be spilling over, until $50 games are a memory. I'll pay the extra 10 for titles I really want...but not happily.
On the PC side only real big-name games start at $50 and last there for long at all... most other games quickly go to the bargain bins or get marked down significantly in months... and lots games start as low as $20. So there's always that...
And I know that costs to make games are going up, but you always hear about lowering prices -- not raising them... probably just because of the volume...
Except for one thing ABF, GB games, also on carts, were much cheaper at the time! Sorry, the prices were high but not for that reason. It's because people thought it was worth that much. We dug our own grave at the time.
GB games are and always have been $30... the occasional price-hike to $35 notwithstanding.
Given the same prices from day one to now, GB games have gone down in price once inflation is concidered.
Why are GB carts cheaper than other carts? Well original GB carts had a 4mb maximum size while some SNES games were 24mb... that's a huge difference and it is really the memory that costs most of the price of a cart...
As for NES games I'd expect them to be quite a bit cheaper than SNES games, unless Nintendo just wanted money. :)
I rarely ever pay $50 for games anymore. The only games that are worth that much to me are the big ones (Metroid, Zelda, Mario, etc.). For everything else I wait for sales, price drops, or until they turn into GH titles.
Yeah, I don't pay a full $50 price very often either... usually I buy older, used, or cheaper games.
I rarely buy used games. Best Buy usually has pretty good deals on games every so often, and I have a ton of $5 coupons for that store.
Best Buy... I don't buy games there much. Their selection isn't that good and EB and/or GameStop have equal or better prices on pretty much everything.
Actually you are wrong. BB always sells big titles for very cheap when they first come out. I got Advance Wars for $20 (and I'll be getting AW 2 for the same price tomorrow), Mario World for $15, Yoshi's Island for $20, Sonic Advance for $15, Crash's Huge Adventure for $10, Sonic Advance 2 for $20, and they're selling several X-Box, PC, PS2, and Gamecube games for very cheap. You can get The Mark of Kri (my second favorite PS2 game ever) for only $10 and Jedi Starfighter (XBox) for $15. And then I know how to get tons of $5 coupons. They're very cheap if you look out for sales and price drops.
I haven't bought a Game Boy game in two years so I don't remember about those. I do remember a somewhat poor selection.
As for PC games, they have a small selection of games and their prices are the same or higher than EB and GameStop. I don't buy PC games there because they never have better deals or games the others don't.
As for Gamecube, they have not many games but a few sometimes are a good deal... not many but a few. Its still better to go to EB and Gamestop and look at the used games... many more games and plenty at reasonable prices. N64, too.
Here you go again. I give you facts about deals that I have seen at Best Buy, and you just go "nah, I don't think so". Your arrogance is amazing.
I go to Best Buy along with EB and Gamestop every time I go to the mall.
Well then you're just making up lies, because I frequently get PC and console games for great prices at BB. Gamestop has a larger selection but they never have great sales like BB does. Advance Wars 2 is $30 at Gamestop and EB. I can get it for $20 at BB. I also got Freelancer for $50 at Gamestop but if I had waited one week I could have gotten it for $30 at Best Buy.
Tension is mounting. Let's just hope some robot doesn't go crazy and kill everyone!
I only go to the mall once every few months, for one. Its over half an hour away from here. Because of college and stuff I haven't been since January... I got Zelda WW and Capcom vs SNK at KB Toy Works in town. :)
As for BB... maybe they do have better prices for GB games, I didn't deny that. I said I don't know. But for PC? No way...
YES, FOR PC!! Did you just completely ignore that thing about Freelancer? They also had the Diablo II set for real cheap a few months back, and they frequently have PC game sales. Check out their weekly ads, you stubborn ass.
They have a decent selection of current PC games at average prices, with the occasional surprise too. Its not bad or anything... but I can't remember any times I bought a PC game at BB instead of the specialty stores because it was cheaper there. Some games might have been a little cheaper, not sure... but I've always found EB has the best PC game prices whenever they vary between the three stores. Not always, but usually. And its been that way for many years...
Just like how Software ETC/GameStop has by far the most older and used PC and console games.
Older and used, sure. But for new games BB is usually the best, especially on the week of their release.
Maybe... but I doubt it for most cases. I buy very few games on the week of their release. And from my experience their games just aren't cheaper than EB and Gamestop!
Whoa, whoa---backtrack a bit here.
Quote:$100 for Chrono Trigger
CHRONO TRIGGER COST $100!??!?
Sonic 2 cost $90 and I paid that much for it. I'd never do that now.
The most I've ever paid for a game is the $75 I paid for the Warcraft III Collector's Edition. After that, I probably have never spent more than $55 on a game...
That's insane. The WC3 CE cost ten dollars less than that at Best Buy the first week of its release. Then it was about the same. And while it's true that most of the games at Best Buy cost the exact same as the ones at Gamestop and EB, there are also the $5 coupons that you can get by buying those green gamers gift certificates. Just put a few cents or a dollar on each certificate and then use the $5 coupon on the back of them. So that means that Best Buy is just about always cheaper than EB and Gamestop, although they do have a smaller selection.
Gift certificates? $5 off coupons? I don't know what you are talking about...
Oh, and I don't know if I checked Best Buy for the WC3 Collector's Edition... I don't know. Maybe I got it at some other mall... I really can't remember, except for the fact that I did pay $75.
EB used to regularly have coupons... in 1998 when I bought Starcraft I got it for $30 instead of $40 because for the first week they had a coupon downloadable from their website that got you $10 off... but I they stopped doing that years ago.
Ok, this is really simple. If you go to Best Buy you'll see these green gift certificates in cd cases, called Gamer's Certificates or something like that. You can put any amount of money on them and each of these certificates comes with a $5 coupon good for any videogame software title or accessory $19.99 and up (it says $19.99 and up but I've used it for $10 games, and it might work for PC games). I have a ton of them.
Are you telling me there are actually gift certificates that act as MORE than just weakened money? Are you saying I could buy a gift certificate, and then RIGHT after that I could use said certificate and coupon together to save $5 any time I want? I don't even have to hang on to them? That's cool!
If you already were saying this multiple times to ABF, forgive me, I only read the last post of this argument here and caught that. Glad I bothered to read it.
Wait, if you buy a $20 gift certificate you actually get $25? Even after tax that is a couple of dollars... how odd...
You could buy fifty gamer's gift certificates, put just one cent on each card, and have fifty $5 coupons. Coupons, ABF. And they don't expire until December 31st.
What do you mean, buy a card for one cent and you get a $5 coupon? That's quite the loophole!
You can put any amount of money on each certificate. I usually put a dollar on each one and use it along with the coupon.
Cool beans, but I doubt I'll ever buy one to keep it around (and thus have to worry about keeping track of it), but rather use the better tactic of buying them ONLY when I'm also going to buy some game, and thus use it right after I buy it.
Oh noes! Coupled with a 1% fat tax what are we going to do??/
They're talking about the coders and how much they cost, they keep asking for more money depending on their ability, which of course is cutting in to the development house's profit money from investors. It's just like hollywood; If you're not there to make sure your name gets put on the money list, you get nothing for the film you worked on. That's because the production houses suck up all the left over money and profit and then make sure the books tell a different story. They'll make it appear that all profit went towards R&D or advertizements or post production costs which is all bullshit.
Nintendo will raise their prices if Sony does and people affiliated with Sony are making so much money it's rediculous. So naturally, they want to make more. I wouldn't worry about it though, the industry lacks communication when it comes to store sales. Target might have Wind Waker for 45 but K-Mart will have it for 50, but then you can buy it used at Blockbuster for 35.
The video game industry is about to get bumpy now that more and more people are learning to code and some of them actually do it well. Imagine how much diamonds would cost if the streets were paved with them.
