The price of premiere games, especially important games, of large franchises and long development, has been more or less constant for years, but some publishers consider that it is not a fair price and consider, worth the redundancy, increase it slightly for the next generation of consoles to head PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series.
They count it in GamesIndustry, where they explain that the reason for this consideration, since at the moment it is not a firm decision, is mainly based on the rising cost of productions. Thus, the price of the games would have been stable for about fifteen years, while the developments would have raised their cost of production between 200 and 300 percent.
According to the president and CEO of the gaming research firm IDG Consulting, Yoshio Osaki, «The last time the price of next-gen launch games went up was in 2005 and 2006, when it went from $ 49.99 to $ 59.99 at the start of the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation.«. If the increase in the cost of productions is added to the ‘freezing’ of prices, the consideration of issues seems obvious.
Osaki makes the comparison with the price of movie tickets, which would have experienced a 39% increase in a similar period of time, that of cable television plans, whose price would have increased by 105% and even Netflix, which Since its launch, the subscription prices would have risen 100% … although with this last example it makes a bit of a trap, since it compares the prices with which the service started in the beginning with those of the most expensive current plans.
Be that as it may, there are publishers in the video game industry that they are seeing that everything goes up except the price of the games, and although it is to be supposed that those large productions whose cost has doubled and even tripled are betting so much because they make a profit – although this is not always the case, obviously – they are considering applying a slight increase for the next generation of consoles.
Of course, such an increase in the price of games would not be widespread, since not all games cost the same to produce: it would depend on the franchise, the studio, the genre … But, how much are we talking about? Well from current $ 59.99 to $ 69.99… or euros, because the change makes it exact.
«Even with the increase to $ 69.99 for the next generation, that increase from 2005 to 2020 would be only 17%“Says Osaki, who maintains that”It doesn’t even cover cost increases entirely, but it’s a step in the right direction. IDG works with all the major game publishers and we have evidence indicating that other publishers are also exploring the possibility of increasing their next generation price in certain franchises, for the same reasons described above.«.
And he concludes: «The price of next-gen games shouldn’t be $ 69.99 in all cases, but iconic AAA’s like NBA 2K deserve this price more than others«.
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