Price of PS3 games

[Cujo]

how much do you think that ps3 games will cost

[Kiwi]

Most probably a little bit more than they are now, say, £44.99-£49.99 (Or whatever equivalent that is in your own currency).

[Pumster]

I think PS3 games will probably be $50 US as well. Only Nintendo charged more for their Nintendo 64 games, ($60) but that was because you had to pay for a huge chunk of plastic. PSX and PS2 games have been $49.99 since they're just CDs. (Except recent Playstation releases, which have been $20-30.) Even Tomb Raider AoD, which was in development for three years, is only $50. Unless this leap in technology causes companies to all of a sudden seem under-staffed, then that would lead to a larger price. (And if an average PS3 game takes more then one year to produce, that won't help either.) More then likely, companies will try to keep the price down so you don't have to spend a small fortune whenever you want a new game.

[Kiwi]

The price of games has always seemed to stay the same for every generation. When the NES was out the games used to be £40, and the same goes for every other generation of console.

[phil]

i think that games are generally overpriced. this is not really a problem with things that I am not intrested in becase they quickly drop in price, usually within 12 months a game will fall from £40 to about £20. what with the platnum releases etc. Even Nintendo have figured out that you cant charge a premium on old games.

but a new release at £40 or more 45 in some cases, i had seen the socom with a head set that proberbly had the production value of about £3 go for a £50 package in some shops. and lets sot forget that 25% of the price of a game goes directly in the pocket of Sony (they make far more mony from this than their little black box itself) for providing the operating system. (that is why PC game are roughly 10 quid cheaper) Imagine if 25% of the cost of your movie ticket went to Lumier family in france, or the Panflex company for building the camara. Or Sony/Philips for inventing the DVD. or indeed if America had had to pay the English 5cents everytime they used the English Launquage.

It might be an idea that combine of companys started thinking about building universal console simular to the CD or DVD system that anyone can create media for. maybe that is the real future of the console?

game costs are rarely cost more than 5million dollars to make, compare that to a new movie that costs around 75million dollars to make and will rarely cost more than £20.

sure: I'm simplthying the situation, but i done think that games retailers will be able to get the avarge game far past the £40 price range without a consummer backlash.

no matter how much noney they poor into the production of a console or individual game. they are dooing this because (like film) the audiance is widening. the gamers that are now in their twentys will want to keep gaming in to there 30's.

I'm no econimist, but i feel that the price of games should be going down, that is if the industry wants to see the kind of casual buying that the movie and music industry enjoys.

[Kiwi]

The difference with movies is that they can usually make that money back through the cinemas, and then through VHS/DVD releases.

[phil]

The movie theatre is a real good case, but not really as much as it once was. (Sorry If I am going ‘off-thread with this film stuff, but I feel that it pertains to the economics of games). A blockbuster film that costs under a hundred million dollars to make will roughly spend the same again in promotion. it is very rare that a successful film will do much more than break even. The profit is really made in the DVD sales, and TV licences.

You can see that the importance, or weight has really shifted from theatre to the home. remember all those strikes in Hollywood, that was about pay scales based solely on theatre takings and not the lucrative video markets. (Again I am over simplifying that whole issue). It was the whole ‘life after cinematic death’ with video that fuled the whole ‘hundreds of millions’ of dollars filmmaking. (With films like Terminator 2) The time between a film playing at the cinema and being released on DVD has fallen so much that it would seem the advertising for a film is only the preamble to generate awareness for when the DVD packages hit the stores (think of Lord of the Rings). In many case some of the most successful films didn’t even have mush of a life on the big screen (such as The Shawshank Redemption).

Some computer games have a similar life to the movie theatre in terms of the Video Arcade (remember how you spent £10 on them while waiting to see a film you spent £5 to see). Especially with games like Tekken and Crazy Taxi. Yet that is being seen as far less important than the home market.

Sure there are differences between the game and film markets, but I feel that the similarities are stronger.

[Kiwi]

Is there a lot of difference between the quantites sold when it comes to VHS/DVD's and games?

I was thinking that perhaps because games sold a lot less than VHS/DVD's that they need to have the price higher to make it up.

[phil]

overall quantities sure. but I think that It’s really relative.

Films have markets: and Hollywood will try and make films that cross the widest demographic(s) that It can. Like Pearl Harbor, romance for middle age women, action for young men, history for all those baby boomers that are pushing sixty.

But and film like the Matrix will have massive penetration only within its 'demographic'because its market is focused (roughly the 15 to 29 year old males) [sure your girlfriend may say she loves it, but did she buy it? she probably watches your copy]. You could say that a computer games share this demographic with film buyers.

I take your point that it is unfair to compare games with the film industry as a whole but it is possible to draw a comparison with this market demographic. The Matrix was made for it for 60million or whatever. And you bought it on DVD for 20quid (or similar)

Metal Gear cost 5million and I bought it for 40quid. And I’m sure that the advertising budget was lower.

i know that i puting myself out on a limb here, but the Matrix sells roughly 28 units for every 1 Metal Gear in a unit to expense ratio.
………………………………………………………………………………………….

I’m not sure of the details but I know that Nintendo received a large fine from a European monopolies commission for over pricing and price fixing. So I’m definitely not simply taking a poke at Sony. And I know that sony have to recoup that ‘billion dollars’ or whatever that they have sunk into the PS3s research and development.
http://www.ananova.com/business/stor...792.html?menu=
But the sheer fact that they have sunk so much money into this product signals that they expect that more people than a couple of twenty year olds who like the Matrix to buy it.

[phil]

in short.

20quid for the programer, 7quid for sony, 3quid for production.

bottom line: I think a new game should cost 30quid.

[ibrooklyn]

im pretty sure that the games will stay the same price, and some WILL be lover, did you guys ever hear this before.......i think that the guy who created MGS said that he wanted to make these new games that will be very cheap and will self destruct after you would beat them, they wanted to do that on the PS2 and they can, but its a lil too expensive to do things like that now, maybe in a few years, and i might be wrong about the MGS creator but im 100% sure that ive seen the interview with some game developer, its just ive read that so long ago i cnt remeber which guy exactly

[stanDarsh]

Ive heard about that self destructing technology before, and i think it's pathetic. I also think piracy will go up if they do implement self destructing technology into dvds cds and such.

[Swordmaster Jehuty]

Off course not 30-40$! Most new games in Europa and my country (the Netherlands) cost about 65 Euro's and that is 71$. I expect that the games of the PS2 would lower the next 2 years, especially the last few months before the release of the PS3. And the PS3 games would cost about 60-70 euro's.

I don't know how much games cost in the US, but 40$ is a bit low.

[Kiwi]

£39.99 = $63.26 = €57.82

[Swordmaster Jehuty]

€57.82 + €12.18 for the stores= €70

[Kiwi]

Are all of the new games over there €70?

[Swordmaster Jehuty]

Most of the new ones are €69.95, but those are the most expensive ones.

[Omega Blue]

games haven't seemed to go up any here in my part of the US still all seem to be $49.95 for Ps2 games.

[Swordmaster Jehuty]

Maybe the games in the US are cheaper because there are a lot more people living in the US (I'm not sure of that though) than in Europe, especially in the Netherlands.

[Ramzy]

Once again, nobody knows for sure.