£70 - The "New Normal" for next generation games?

[Raymond Lin]

Some were as high as £60. I recall Sonic & Knuckles and Virtua Racing being particularly egregious. That's about £120 in today's money

I know people will justify it saying games back then were on a cartridge so they cost more to produce, true, but to the end-user, £50 is £50, whether it comes on a Bluray or a cartridge. It's still a game product.

Which is why the last generation DLC, season's pass, special editions, collectors edition etc have been pushed in order to make up the difference. Games prices essentially have been flat for decades.

 

[silvagti]

I know people will justify it saying games back then were on a cartridge so they cost more to produce, true, but to the end-user, £50 is £50, whether it comes on a Bluray or a cartridge. It's still a game product.

True but back in the 90's the more expensive games tended to be more expensive because they were either on larger capacity cartridges than usual or featured special add-on chips (SuperFX,etc) which added to the manufacturing cost. I still recall paying around £60-70 for some games on Super Nintendo like Streetfigher 2, Mortal Kombat and Turok on N64 due to the larger than normal capacities.

Game prices fell to around £40 when optical media became the norm in the late 90s and have remained there pretty much since amazingly! Until recently when they started creeping up towards £50. That I could handle. It's this sudden £20 hike to £70 out of the blue which is bothering me and other than pure opportunism I can't really see a reason to justify it.

 

[Raymond Lin]

True but back in the 90's the more expensive games tended to be more expensive because they were either on larger capacity cartridges than usual or featured special add-on chips (SuperFX,etc) which added to the manufacturing cost. I still recall paying around £60-70 for some games on Super Nintendo like Streetfigher 2, Mortal Kombat and Turok on N64 due to the larger than normal capacities.

Game prices fell to around £40 when optical media became the norm in the late 90s and have remained there pretty much since amazingly! Until recently when they started creeping up towards £50. That I could handle. It's this sudden £20 hike to £70 out of the blue which is bothering me and other than pure opportunism I can't really see a reason to justify it.

As I said, and I repeat again, to the end-user, what does it matter whether you get the game on a disc or on a cartridge?

Apart making yourself feel better having more plastic and "tech" in your hand, both still a game, no matter what angle you look at it, what planet you are standing on when you look at it, on earth or on the moon, it won't change the actual function of the object you are holding, a game.

So as a consumer, it makes zero difference the form of physical media that it comes in besides you think you are getting more for your money but in actual function they are identical.

You can tell yourself you are getting "more" but its not like you can turn the cartridge into a microwave after it's done, it has 1 function and 1 function only, being a game, just like a disc.

 

[silvagti]

So as a consumer, it makes zero difference the form of physical media that it comes in besides you think you are getting more for your money but in actual function they are identical.

That I agree on. I was just getting at that if a regular Nintendo game in the 90s was £50 on a 1 Megabtye cartridge and there was another that was £65 on a 2 Megabtye cartridge you coud at least see why the price was higher due to the production costs.

Whereas we seem to have hit a point where the average Playstation game has jumped in price overnight by a substantial margin (40%) for no good reason as far as I can see? Or at least in the process of simply moving from PS4 to PS5 which doesn't strike me as being a particularly good reason.

 

[Stokesy]

I remember paying £50 for a Mega Drive game in 1992...

I think 7th Guest retailed at £70 when it was released?

 

[ganesh]

I’ll use my normal method of waiting 6 months - 2 years before buying a game I want, £30 is my absolute limit.

 

[cyclonus10]

I paid £60+ for StarFox on SNES but that was import prices from Japan.

Around the same time Street Fighter 2 US import was £45.

Pound was strong against the Dollar but utter rubbish against the Yen.

But no way on Earth am I paying that for an actual UK release

 

[Supercow]

I think some are forgetting games back then cost almost as much, with a much smaller team developing the game in the first place.

Sales volume was much lower I'd expect though, so prices needed to be higher to make any profit.

 

[RobDogDog]

I don't pay anything more than a tenner these days!

 

[stoofa]

I tend not to buy games at release - I'm more than happy to wait the few months for prices to drop to more sensible levels.
This will be different on 19th November - my new PS5 should be arriving, so I am going to be paying full price for a few games - AC Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion and most likely Sackboy, but none of those are £70.
Going forward I'll stick to my usual 4-5 month wait and then purchase.

 

[Jono8]

I will not be paying £70 for a computer game when they drop in price so quickly.

Will either just play what is on gamepass, or wait for the price to drop on a game i really want.

 

[Gray2233]

I remember Turok on the N64 being silly money, something about expandable cartridge or something.

Most N64 games were fairly expensive, I remember paying £65 for my copy of Ocarina of Time.

I very rarely buy games when they're new now anyway, I have a gigantic permanent backlog I can go to while I wait in most cases. There's generally 2-3 games a generation that I would consider day one purchases, so while I expect prices to come down after launch I wouldn't be overly fussed if they didn't.

 

[MissChief]

Although I won’t be buying either console it does seem like it makes the likes of Xbox game pass seem much cheaper and a much better idea than buying one game every so often? Especially if you end up subscribing for a year at a time and the cost isn’t that much more than a single game?

 

[Raymond Lin]

Most N64 games were fairly expensive, I remember paying £65 for my copy of Ocarina of Time.

I very rarely buy games when they're new now anyway, I have a gigantic permanent backlog I can go to while I wait in most cases. There's generally 2-3 games a generation that I would consider day one purchases, so while i expect prices to come down after launch I wouldn't be overly fussed if they didn't.

That's what I have been doing the past few years. I saved hundreds just waited for PSN, I should have waited for MGS5!

 

[Gray2233]

Although I won’t be buying either console it does seem like it makes the likes of Xbox game pass seem much cheaper and a much better idea than buying one game every so often? Especially if you end up subscribing for a year at a time and the cost isn’t that much more than a single game?

Technically speaking, but it ultimately boils down to the types of games you play.

I'm a big JRPG fan for example, it's a genre that's never really taken off on the Xbox compared to the Playstation despite Microsoft pumping money into those titles on the 360 to (unsuccessfully) try and capture part of the Japanese market. Companies like Atlus do not release on Microsoft consoles, and while they've dipped their toe in the water recently with a PC port of an old game they're still unlikely to ever do day one releases outside of Japanese consoles with the potential of a PC port a year or more down the line.

The Xbox games pass literally offers me nothing as far as a console goes, the games it has on that I'm at all interested in are also on PC. It's a great option for people who only game on consoles and tend to focus on one system per generation, but for a chunk of people like myself it just isn't appealing enough to see me buy a console.

That's what I have been doing the past few years. I saved hundreds just waited for PSN, I should have waited for MGS5!

Yup. It's helped by the fact I rarely play multiplayer games now, and with single player stuff I'd rather wait for the DLC/Expansions to be released before I play them anyway, so waiting for a GOTY/Gold Edition is fine by me.

 

[Scort]

I would probably be able to stomach the £70 price, if that was it - you buy the game for £70 and all extras (DLC et etc) are free, no more micro transactions and in-games stores etc. Oh, and the games were finished - play tested, and not subject to a hefty download on launch day.

Sadly, stores and micro transactions are far too much of a money maker - so I fully expect that AAA games will be £70 and still have expansion packs etc as a charge on top.

Regardless of the price of games then vs now - I'm not one to be paying £70 for a game, so I'll be waiting to pick up a PS5; may even look to see what Xbox is like with the game pass thingy.

 

[MissChief]

I can only assume the licensing fee MS and Sont charge on every game is rising by quite a bit considering the production cost of each console compared to the retail price. Most of the games are unlikely to be more advanced than a top AAA PC game. For cross platform releases on all three there’s not going to be a huge difference between them. One thing I can say though if they try and charge £70 for a standard PC game with extra DLC and MTX and nothing included then I can see piracy rising massively again.

 

[McPhee]

Although I won’t be buying either console it does seem like it makes the likes of Xbox game pass seem much cheaper and a much better idea than buying one game every so often? Especially if you end up subscribing for a year at a time and the cost isn’t that much more than a single game?

Game Pass has changed my game buying habits completely. Not sure it's a good thing for the industry in that regard. I signed up for 3 years for about £120 last year. Since then, I've bought Bannerlord, Forza Horizon 3 (as it was being delisted), and a few cheap Humble Bundles. My spend on games has dropped dramatically.

I just don't see the point in opening my wallet any more. Like, I could go and buy Mafia DE. I'd really like to give it a go, and it isn't unreasonably priced. But I just don't need to spend the ~£30. There are plenty of things on Game Pass (between PC and Xbox) to keep me occupied.

 

[MissChief]

Game Pass has changed my game buying habits completely. Not sure it's a good thing for the industry in that regard. I signed up for 3 years for about £120 last year. Since then, I've bought Bannerlord, Forza Horizon 3 (as it was being delisted), and a few cheap Humble Bundles. My spend on games has dropped dramatically.

I just don't see the point in opening my wallet any more. Like, I could go and buy Mafia DE. I'd really like to give it a go, and it isn't unreasonably priced. But I just don't need to spend the ~£30. There are plenty of things on Game Pass (between PC and Xbox) to keep me occupied.

It's the chance Microsoft take. You could buy one or two games a year and only give them £25 in licensing fees (I have no idea how much licensing fees on games are) or pay them £120 three years. Money that you've paid directly to MS. Sure publishers will get their cut if you play their game and likely an upfront payment but it's got to be good for MS?

 

[McPhee]

It's the chance Microsoft take. You could buy one or two games a year and only give them £25 in licensing fees (I have no idea how much licensing fees on games are) or pay them £120 three years. Money that you've paid directly to MS. Sure publishers will get their cut if you play their game and likely an upfront payment but it's got to be good for MS?

It's great for Microsoft and for the publishers and developers of the games I'm playing. It's not so good for the publishers and developers of the games I'm no longer buying.

Take this upcoming quarter as an example. Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Squadrons, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Godfall, The Medium. I've likely missed some. Ordinarily, I'd buy a few of these. But now? I've got way too much of a backlog from Game Pass, Epic's free giveaways, Humble Bundle/Monthly and Origin Access. So I'm highly unlikely to spend hundreds of pounds buying games. Instead, I'll buy one or maybe two of the above, at most. Maybe not even that.

The popularity of Game Pass could change buying habits in a way that is felt by the industry. We all only have so much time. Do you want to spend £70 on a new game to play? Or just pick something from the subscription that you're already paying for?