Next Generation Price Hikes

Like i said awhile back if they ever raised game prices any higher then 49.99 the video game rental and used game business's would skyrocket. People would be more hesitant to buy a game of that price so they would rent it or just buy it used to save some bills like most of us do now. Also by people being more picky and not buying alot of games maybe the makers will put out better games so cosumers will pay the dough for it unlike a shitty game where no one would buy it and they would end up losing alot of money.
 
I just bought the RE4 Collector's Edition... so...

Seriously though. That is the extreme exception. Besides, I traded in three games and got $17 off. I don't normally pay the current MSRP.
 
[quote name='capnharlock']The cartridge argument doesn't hold up because of the development costs of many of the top tier games. Factor in the technical talent required to make a game, the variety of artists and modelers needed, and often the cost of big name voice talent and licensed or original music. Game development budgets are pretty huge now, and I don't see any indication that they're dropping any time soon.
[/quote]

No the cost of media is a central issue. Development costs are a one time debit but producing the individual units incurs a cost for every single one. The difference is cost between CD/DVD and mask ROMs is still orders of magnitude for competitive capacities in the the latter. It's pennies per unit vs. tens of dollars. In the days when everything was on ROMs it was a major portion of what you were paying for. This is why so many third parties were reluctant to produce more N64 games. The commitment in capital to produce 250,000 units (a typical first production run size for a midlist title) for the N64 was in the millions of dollars compared to under a million for a PS game. This made it much harder for smaller publishers to take the risk on an N64 title. The additional issue of scheduling additional orders made it all the worse. If your ROM cart game sold out quickly and you didn't have another order already scheduled soon you could end up waiting months for a slot to open. For optical media it was weeks at worst.

There is no reason why games should be treated any differently from movies in terms of cost of creation vs. cost to end user. My theater ticket or DVD cost me the same regardless of how much the movie cost to produce. I don't expect to pay any more for the DVD of the latest $100+ epic than I do for the latest indie darling paid for by maxing out the writer-director's credit cards.
 
[quote name='Cornfedwb']Considering NES games cost $50 in 1986.. that same game should cost $77.22 just considering inflation. Then throw in the skyrocketing costs of game development.. and I find it amazing companies are even able to stay afloat at the $50 price point.

I would expect $60 at a minimum soon.. if not higher.[/quote]

Those are fallacious arguments. The Nintendo carts of yore cost immensely more per unit to produce and reached a much smaller audience. The cost in constant dollars to produce the media for a million unit selling title is less than a tenth for today's multi-gigabyte optical disc copared to yesterdays mask Rom measured in kilobytes. Even if the optical discs didn't offer their greater capacity they'd still be invaluable for their sheer cheapness.

The development costs claim is another dodge. The cost of the most expensive games to date is still minor compared to a romantic comedy with a couple major names above the title. Those star's are pocketing a payment greater than the vast majority of games currently in production will cost. The solution is greater volume not higher prices.

Everybody in the home video business thought Paramount was insane when they priced the VHS released of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' at a sellthrough price of $24.95. It was insane. You sold them tapes to stores for $80-100 and they rented them out. End user purchases were for the wealthy. Paramount would have to sell three times as many units just to break even.

Paramount quickly sold seven times as many units as the most popular release then in existence. And it kept selling. And the home video market was never the same. The market for projects that would never have a theatrical run but instead went directly into the home video market became viable because high volume trumped the high margins that had dominated before.
 
[quote name='epobirs'][quote name='Cornfedwb']Considering NES games cost $50 in 1986.. that same game should cost $77.22 just considering inflation. Then throw in the skyrocketing costs of game development.. and I find it amazing companies are even able to stay afloat at the $50 price point.

I would expect $60 at a minimum soon.. if not higher.[/quote]

Those are fallacious arguments. The Nintendo carts of yore cost immensely more per unit to produce and reached a much smaller audience. The cost in constant dollars to produce the media for a million unit selling title is less than a tenth for today's multi-gigabyte optical disc copared to yesterdays mask Rom measured in kilobytes. Even if the optical discs didn't offer their greater capacity they'd still be invaluable for their sheer cheapness.

The development costs claim is another dodge. The cost of the most expensive games to date is still minor compared to a romantic comedy with a couple major names above the title. Those star's are pocketing a payment greater than the vast majority of games currently in production will cost. The solution is greater volume not higher prices.

Everybody in the home video business thought Paramount was insane when they priced the VHS released of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' at a sellthrough price of $24.95. It was insane. You sold them tapes to stores for $80-100 and they rented them out. End user purchases were for the wealthy. Paramount would have to sell three times as many units just to break even.

Paramount quickly sold seven times as many units as the most popular release then in existence. And it kept selling. And the home video market was never the same. The market for projects that would never have a theatrical run but instead went directly into the home video market became viable because high volume trumped the high margins that had dominated before.[/quote]

I didn't know that about VHS. That supports my belief that if more companies would take a "risk" and follow somewhere along the lines of the 2k series, then everyone would see that it makes it better for all and we would see price drops across the board. Remember how DVD movies were at first more than $30, then after a couple of years they were around $29.99, and now most release at $19.99 or less. And like you brought up with the price of producing these movies, it would probably be a lot easier for game companies to make a profit.
 
I used to have no problem buying games for 49.99. In fact, I bought my fair share of 59.99+ games back in the day (Phantasy Stars, Final Fantasy II & III, N64 games, Street Fighter II, Killer Instinct, Koei games, etc). I don't remember games dropping much in price, so I knew that was the price I had to pay if I wanted to play the game.

Once PS1 publishers starting introducing Greatest Hits, I knew if I waited long enough I could get the games I wanted for more than half of what they originally cost. It's enirely probable that the disc media enabled the era of budget games. I never remember console cartridge media dropping to the prices we see today (4.95-19.99), at least, not the sheer number of titles we see today.

My point is, as long as games continue to drop in price over time, I won't be willing to shovel out 60 dollars (or even 40 or 50), unless it's a gotta play can't wait 10/10 title, coupled with a limited edition pre-order bonus. I have paid full price for two games in the past two years. One was Windwaker so I could get the OOT bonus, the other was Halo 2, so I could get the Tin case + DVD bonus.

If I know the game is going to drop, I've got the patience to wait it out.
 
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