More Publishers Are Reportedly Considering Raising Next-Gen Game Prices

If games are becoming more expensive to make, could it be because they've become more BLOATED than ever? There are games on PS4 that have HOURS worth of cutscenes. Sports games have RPG elements that no one asked for, and open-world games are getting bigger and bigger without actually needing to. would you be mad if a basketball came out and had exhibition, season, and playoff modes, along with some online options? like, that's it? me neither. If games are becoming more expensive to make, developers should figure out where the fat is, and cut away.

I remember FIFA games being slightly more expensive on current-gen consoles than on last-gen consoles but because they lowered the price of the ageing version. I don't know about USA but I've seen those €70 (that is $79!) / £60 prices taxes included over here. That was and still is the price of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Anyway, video games are not food, they spend money once and then start selling copies (with zero costs in digital sales) for years, so I really think that publishers should keep prices as low as possible in order to boost sales and gain more money in the long run. These days, many people wait for a sale before buying a new game, if they keep raising prices it's not going to work well for them.

I would dispute the fact that the last time prices were raised was 2005. Reason being, since then publishers have added dlc, season passes, microtransactions. So while a boxed game may not have had a price increase, its had it in other ways. I can't even play assassins creed without the game begging me to pay money as a reason to avoid a grind. These companies have no self respect.

Also, like @armondo36 said, trim the fat. I liked fifa when it was just a season I could take Leeds United to the top, now its all this volta football stuff. I want to play proper football, not this fifa street crap.

I think that if anyone is going to lead the discussion for higher game prices, it shouldn't be 2K. If their games were consistently high quality then I might believe this but they've recently shown with WWE that they aren't a company that pushes the boundaries of gaming.

Add on the information that you have to buy the more expensive edition to get "smart delivery" and this all screams of greed. If companies like Ubisoft and CD Project Red can handle smart delivery then I don't have much sympathy for those that can't. Developers that want to be taken seriously might want to follow more of the latter two companies' strategies and less on imitating 2K's.

I was surprised the increase didn't happen for X1/PS4 games. Hate to say it, but I could see publishers opting for $69.99 as the MSRP and still charge for DLC.

Edit: Not that they're right for doing so, but they keep using more bloated games as an excuse. Prices might just drop faster for the base games, though.

That's crazy, games in canada are already 79.99 when they first release.. Going up 10 dollars means games will be 89.99 that's absurd, 100 dollars for a video games is insane..

@Bmartin001 Actually they would be $94.99 with the exchange rate. And that doesn't even factor into each Provinces sales tax. Game sales in Canada will surely take a huge hit after this...

Could it possibly be down to physical media? producing something onto physical media in cases (now that plastic has become bad) could have upped the cost of materials. Exactly why I’ve gone all digital in hopes that one day digital will become the cheaper option

If games do become more expensive, then I will be buying fewer at launch - if any at all. I am more than happy to wait for games to drop in price to a point that I feel OK to buy.

With next gen being BC and in some cases offering an enhanced experience - even if that just means not dropping frames or dynamically reducing resolutions - I will spend more time playing the older games in my backlog until the prices of 'new' games drop to a point that I feel comfortable to pay. I can live without pre-order bonus digital skins....

I do that now anyway - but if games go up in price, then I will be buying a LOT fewer games at launch and won't need to buy 'new' games to have 'something' to play on my new consoles....

@WesEds Plastic is toxic and it's everywhere, even in water, plants, animals, air... but plastic is super cheap so it's not the culprit here.

Nope just look at digital pricing on PSN & Xbox Marketplace, even Steam, GOG & Epic have upped their game prices inline with consoles, my concern with the digital drive is there will be zero competition and MS & Sony can charge what they like, just like Nintendo to a certain extent.

I’ve been gaming for over 30 years and to be honest prices haven’t changed that much in that time, so they are probably due an increase. I still remember paying £70 (physical cartridge version, this was before downloads) for Virtua Racing on the Sega Megadrive, because the game had an “on-board” chip in the cartridge to help with the 3D Polygon graphics!

Yet more evidence that PS5 and Series X are needless, pointless, too early and irrelevant. The only driving force behind these consoles is hardware sales and not the Furthering of software capability.
Sony and Microsoft have been the slow cancer of console gaming since 1995.

@BlueOcean yes i RARELY buy a new game, i wait for sales. the last time i bought a game at the new price was Sekiro early last year. If prices really do go up, i'll mostly stick to sales, Game Pass and the odd game i REALLY WANT.

@WesEds physical media is; ironically, the one thing keeping prices lower.

I think these are getting ready to the fact that Sony (and maybe Microsoft) will likely create at least a percentage of the community that will willingly lock themselves into digital machines that force them to buy titles that never see a reason to go on sale, at least nor before they become obsolete.

I’ll never understand why people throw so much money at sports games that do minimal iteration every year.

That aside, I don’t mind paying a bit more for games, but I feel eeky that a game that takes about a year to make, tops (as are almost all iterative sports games) even dare charge $60 as it is.

I feel a lot of these sports series should just stop selling games and simply charge a monthly fee the way MMOs do, they might even make more money.

@WesEds nope. When everything becomes digital only, they can charge what they want. No more retailers offering deals to undercut each other, it'll be their way, or the highway.

Makes Game Pass even more appealing. I'm sure at the start of each generation games are a bit more before dropping down. I think I paid full RRP for one game when I bought my One S but prices drop so quickly I've never bought anything not on sale since. Maybe this is a move to combat the fact that PS4 and Xbox prices drop so quickly and everyone knows it. Only games I pay full price for at launch are nintendo ones as they don't drop.

Also not sure what entertainment they mean has gone up? CDs/DVD/Blu-ray are all cheaper than when they first arrived on the market.

Development cost may have gone up, but the market size has too so there is plenty of opportunity there. Early adopters of these consoles are seen as people who will swallow a price rise. Milking your most loyal customers. It'll be back down again inside 18 months.

@John_Deacon I’m actually with you here. This might be the way to go until they get things figured out with pricing.