Famitsu reporting PS3 Game prices

D

dukmahsik

Banned
Famitsu Publisher Talks PS3 Game Pricing

August 30th, 2005 Posted in Playstation 3, PS3

At the CESA Developers Confrence Hirokazu Hamamura, president of
Enterbrain
(publisher of Famitsu) talked about the price range of
upcoming PS3 software.
Much like Xbox and Xbox 360, he sees a
significant price increase between PS2
and PS3. Hamamura-san forsees
the cheapest PS3 software being at least $70
USD (EUR 57 / YEN 7,800)
while the most expensive would be around $79 USD
(EUR 65 / YEN 8,800).
That will leave Canadian gamers paying $83-$94.

Perhaps Kutaragi was right and we should all just suck it up and get second jobs.

Props: Yasokiri (in Japan)

http://www.gamegeeknews.com/?cat=13

taken from TXB
 
dukmahsik said:
That will leave Canadian gamers paying $83-$94.
Click to expand...

Nothing new here, i distinctly remember both Grand Theft Auto 3 and Final Fantasy X going for $80+ when they were released here.
 
Personally I was happy when the N64 era died and games went back to the $39.95-$49.95 range on the Nintendo platform.

I think companies are fooling themselves if they can, on the one hand, talk about mainstream acceptance and reaching out to new customers, and on the other raising prices significantly.

I can understand $55-60 (not that I like it, and it was good news hearing 1st party games were looking to hit at $50 from MS), but $70-$80?

I wont believe the prices until Sony announces it because that sounds INSANE. Sony has always had a pretty good understanding of the market. They always seem to have one ear to the developers and one ear to the consumers and bridging that gap and giving each group what they want (for the most part). Sony has always been an inviting company... but $70 games could be more than most casual consumers are willing to stomach.

I could see $70 for a KILLER title (something that looked like the Ruby demo and played like Halo/BF2) but for your average slopware? I have a hard enough time paying $20 for GOOD old titles, I wont pay $70 for typical stuff!
 
dukmahsik said:
Famitsu Publisher Talks PS3 Game Pricing

August 30th, 2005 Posted in Playstation 3, PS3

At the CESA Developers Confrence Hirokazu Hamamura, president of
Enterbrain
(publisher of Famitsu) talked about the price range of
upcoming PS3 software.
Much like Xbox and Xbox 360, he sees a
significant price increase between PS2
and PS3. Hamamura-san forsees
the cheapest PS3 software being at least $70
USD (EUR 57 / YEN 7,800)
while the most expensive would be around $79 USD
(EUR 65 / YEN 8,800).
That will leave Canadian gamers paying $83-$94.

Perhaps Kutaragi was right and we should all just suck it up and get second jobs.

Props: Yasokiri (in Japan)

http://www.gamegeeknews.com/?cat=13

taken from TXB
Click to expand...

Not for the US or Canada though, that's for Japan, he speculated for Japan. In Japan there are already games in 7800 En and 8800 En. I guess either this gen or one more generations we will be back to 9800+ En of Super Famicom era.

Thank goodness for optical medium, if not we would be paying Neo Geo prices for our games :)
 
I've been a hardore gamer all my life, and I've owned just about every system one could own in the past 15 years. But I think I might just may have to give up gaming this next generation, it's time to take up basket weaving.

The reason prices are going up isn't simply because game development budgets will be going up next generation, it's because the game market hasn't grown enough to match the increase in game budgets. Next gen development budgets will likely be double what they are today, but the game market won't be two times as large as it is today, so they have to jack up the price of games to compensate.

Obvious, right?

But where does it stop? The industry is pricing itself right out of the market, I know for me it already has. I want HD gaming as much as the next guy. I want to be able to play games for hours without getting a headache because of vertex shimmering or blurry textures. But as much as I want those things now, I'd rather wait another year or two for when the market is acctualy ready to support the increase in development costs, than have them now to the tune of $400-600 consoles and $80 games.

But then again, there's always Nintendo.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dukmahsik said:
Hamamura-san forsees
the cheapest PS3 software being at least $70
USD (EUR 57 / YEN 7,800)
while the most expensive would be around $79 USD
(EUR 65 / YEN 8,800).
Click to expand...

The PS2 and Xbox games already cost between 60-70 € here in Finland.
 
.Melchiah. said:
The PS2 and Xbox games already cost between 60-70 € here in Finland.
Click to expand...


That's just a direct conversion. If the prices rise in the US, they will most likely rise here as well.
 
DEO3 said:
I've been a hardore gamer all my life, and I've owned just about every system one could own in the past 15 years. But I think I might just may have to give up gaming this next generation, it's time to take up basket weaving.

The reason prices are going up isn't simply because game development budgets will be going up next generation, it's because the game market hasn't grown enough to match the increase in game budgets. Next gen development budgets will likely be double what they are today, but the game market won't be two times as large as it is today, so they have to jack up the price of games to compensate.

Obvious, right?

But where does it stop? The industry is pricing itself right out of the market, I know for me it already has. I want HD gaming as much as the next guy. I want to be able to play games for hours without getting a headache because of vertex shimmering or blurry textures. But as much as I want those things now, I'd rather wait another year or two for when the market is acctualy ready to support the increase in development costs, than have them now to the tune of $400-600 consoles and $80 games.

But then again, there's always Nintendo.
Click to expand...

The irony of this post, is that I remember a time long ago when I was paying $60+ for certain titles on the NES, SNES, and the N64. Sooo... I guess it's just a return to the 'old days' for me.

There was a time not too long ago when one wouldn't be shocked at paying ~$3000 for an x486 computer; now one feels they're being ripped off if they're pushing too far above $500 for a fairly complete desktop. Take inflation into account... and I think we have it pretty good these days. ;)

I agree with the previous comments that Sony's pretty good about it's market strategy, and that Japan is normally going to pay a higher price than the US. But that being said if games go up in price this gen, it'll be going back to a place we've been before. And no I didn't like that place either mind you... ;)
 
$70 is ridiculous, I'd never consider paying that much (even in Canadian$) for a regular edition product. The most I have ever paid for a game for my ps2 is $60 canadian and in hindsight I should have waited till the price dropped to buy it.
 
Uncle said:
That's just a direct conversion. If the prices rise in the US, they will most likely rise here as well.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by direct conversion? are you talking about from Dollar to Euro conversion or something else, because it wouldn't make any sense. 1e is about 1.21$ at the moment, so 65e is 78$, so we pay lot more already (well I don't because I import). I do agree though that if prices go higher in US games will cost even more here.
 
Even at $60 per (x360) game, is too expensive. I usually wait until it hits bargain bins ($20-30)...well, except maybe 1 or 2 launch titles...can't buy a system without buying games can i? But for the next gen games, I think everyone should make a statement by waiting for the games to hit $40-50 instead of buying when it first released.
 
Back about two years ago Greg Costikyan (great author) released an article concerning two trends in the game industry. Firstly, ever skyrocketing costs to produce more elaborate art assets for better hardware and secondly, a trend of much slower growth in sales. Something to think about...

By the way, games have never cost less than they do now. NES games on average cost double what PS2 games do today, SNES games were about 67 percent higher, and even PS1 games were on average about 25 percent more. 59.99 in 2006 is much less than 49.99 was in 1997; even 69.99 will be quite cheap by historical standards.
 
DEO3 said:
But where does it stop? The industry is pricing itself right out of the market, I know for me it already has.
Click to expand...
And based on market principles it should adapt to what the market will support. If everyone's happy to pay $70+ for a game the price will stick, and the 'lower rung' of gamers will drop out or keep to the bargain buckets. But if that price is too steep people won't pay, companies won't make money, and so they'll adapt to produce games within a budget that ensures they can go with the happier $50 price. Everyone just stick to paying what you are willing to pay for a title and it'll sort itself out to reflect the buying attitudes of the masses and reflect the worth of gaming on a dollar basis.
 
Japanese already pay crazy prices for their premium titles (DQ, FF = 9000).
That hardly had any signification for the US, and let alone EU and CA, markets.

Anyway, I'll put my Nostradamus hat on, and say that Japaneses are going to pay a higher price for their PS games and the console, US are going to get the same price for both X360 and PS3 games, and Europe should be a mix of the two (Higly priced console, games in the same ballpark than this generation).
 
Dr Evil said:
What do you mean by direct conversion? .
Click to expand...


I meant that in the original article the price is just a direct conversion ($70=57.3215€). And when we pay 57€ (or more) for games now while they cost $50 (?) in the US, we could pay a lot more if the price goes up elsewhere.

What do games cost in Japan compared to the US? I think that the article is about the prices in Japan, so it doesn't necessarily mean that the prices will rise.
 
When will that scare-mongering stop? Every now and then some stupid article pops up converting En to $ crying "Feurio!". Unless you haven't noticed by now since the beginning of this generation US Dollar lost value in comparison to En and Euro. To estimate price rise it is absolutely useless to compare the US prices to converted Japanese price estimates. The only significant figure is the price rise between current gen games in respect to next-gen estimates in the respective currency. So far the Japanese game price only seem to rise by a few percent, if at all.
 
The thread title is very misleading.

The president of Enterbrain speculated at a CEDEC 2005 speech that the price for a next-gen game would be $10 higher than the current gen. That's all.
 
_leech_ said:
Nothing new here, i distinctly remember both Grand Theft Auto 3 and Final Fantasy X going for $80+ when they were released here.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that was because of the horrid exchange rate at the time. Once the USD plummetted and the CAD rose, everything fell into place. I remember within 6 months, games went from $79-85 (ie: FF X, MSG 2) to $49-59 (ie: KOTOR, Silent Hill 3).
 
We will see what happens with the price range of games for the next generation. The thing many people seem to be overlooking is that the market itself is able to influence these situations. If the companies see that games are not selling at $60 ot $70 then they will reduce the price of the games until they sell at a level they want.

Dev costs are increasing and that has to be taken into account also. If there would be some type of advertisements in games (there is some already but not a lot) in the means of advertisements on loading screens, or maybe billboards and textures, or even an additional screen when the game initially loads that could offset costs by some. I do think it would be odd to see a "brought to you by Pepsi" or "McDonald's chicken nuggets are great" advertisement, but that may be what has to happen.
 
I would like to know what are they thinking, at least if they what more costumers?But this way I think they will only lost, if someone to play 1 only in SP game will need to spend at least ~400$ (using the cheapest by now), plus there is a world crisis, I think that this next gen will start slow, and I think that is will affect all the gen, unless the consoles go cheap very fast.
 
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