Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S (& probably PC) games will increase in price to $70 starting in 2023

[JoeK]

Just now, K said:

I just can't believe none of you guys stepped up and stopped Sony from charging £70 a game. Now *I've* got to pay more. THANKS guys. Great job.

 

The secret RLLMUK cabal planned this years ago - all in the name of making you suffer.

 

Mod appointments all 'round, and liberal use of the ban-hammer.

 

Huzzah.

[TehStu]

15 hours ago, dumpster said:

Firstly, products are priced at what the market will bear

Except milk, which is heavily subsidized. Sorry to pounce but it's kinda topical since milk ends up in those consumer index calculations. You're right that if someone will pay for it then that's the price of course, loss leaders aside.

[bear]

1 hour ago, PaB said:

 

 

spoiler: hardware costs will also go up for Xbox at some point in the new year . 

For what little it's worth I don't believe they will. I think Xbox need to be cheaper than Sony if they want to compete outside of the US. 

[TehStu]

Also, the $70 might be a bit easier to stomach if EVERYTHING wasn't getting more expensive, profoundly so, while CEOs lol on quarterly investor calls of record profits. Just generally, not having a go at game companies here.

[Stanley]

8 hours ago, rafaqat said:

 

It’s more like one big corp decided to fuck you all over.  You all said. Mmm well I guess I’ll make an excuse to pretend that this is ok.  Then the other big corps thought “hey those people over there seem to have no problem being shafted. Let’s shaft them too”
 

 And instead of railing against it you all decided to have a go at anyone that said

“We’re here because you let it happen”. 
 

well done. 

This is dumb, have you been living under a rock for the last couple of years? 

[rafaqat]

1 hour ago, MattyP said:

Indeed. For example the PS5 God Of War game is currently being sold for between £30-45 on FB marketplace at the moment. This is what just under a month after release? In another few months it'll be down to £20. You don't even have to wait that long before the prices of new releases drop significantly TBH. 

but muh launch day excitement. 
And pre-ordering shit too. Madness!! 

[rafaqat]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

This is dumb, have you been living under a rock for the last couple of years? 

If you’re talking about general cost of

living crisis and inflation then sorry but the game price hike to £70 happened well before any of that kicked off. Announced in 2020. Sure, the rest of them can point to inflation and supply chain now but they know what some of you are happy to pay and that will have factored in whether they bumped up their prices or not.  To think that they did it without working out what gamers would accept or had already been accepting for 2 years is naive. 

[JoeK]

1 minute ago, rafaqat said:

If you’re talking about general cost of

living crisis and inflation then sorry but the game price hike to £70 happened well before any of that kicked off. Announced in 2020. Sure, the rest of them can point to inflation and supply chain now but they know what some of you are happy to pay and that will have factored in whether they bumped up their prices or not.  To think that they did it without working out what gamers would accept or had already been accepting for 2 years is naive. 

But, the whole point is that on the whole gamers have accepted it, so the argument is slightly moot.

 

I will be the first the applaud the situation should there suddenly be a universal awakening and everyone drops their pads and storms away in a huff, but I genuinely don’t think this will happen.

 

 

[fragglerock]

I got some  xbox game thing time, and I quite like it. but I don't play something from there every week.

I guess I pay my ffxiv sub every month and that gets played most so the hype for all other games kind of passes me by. Also I have carefully crafted my https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/ mindset... so try and avoid getting swept up in the hype (today's launch of Dwarf Fortress not withstanding!)

[rafaqat]

31 minutes ago, JoeK said:

But, the whole point is that on the whole gamers have accepted it, so the argument is slightly moot.

 

I will be the first the applaud the situation should there suddenly be a universal awakening and everyone drops their pads and storms away in a huff, but I genuinely don’t think this will happen.

yeah I’m not saying fight it now and change it. I’m just annoyed not enough people fought it when the first price hikes were announced. It’s too late now. We’re all in the same £70 shitty boat. 

[Stanley]

51 minutes ago, rafaqat said:

If you’re talking about general cost of

living crisis and inflation then sorry but the game price hike to £70 happened well before any of that kicked off. Announced in 2020. Sure, the rest of them can point to inflation and supply chain now but they know what some of you are happy to pay and that will have factored in whether they bumped up their prices or not.  To think that they did it without working out what gamers would accept or had already been accepting for 2 years is naive. 

What you appear to be saying is that Microsoft, one of the worlds largest corporations, dwarfing Sony, decided that two years after Sony had raised their prices they would do likewise, and it’s all Sony’s fault, or the fault of their fans. Not only that, they haven’t actually released a game in twelve months, not one which would attract that kind of premium pricing anyway, and their next one is still months away. Really? 
 

This is yet another attempt to raise prices and push customers towards Game Pass. The last time they tried it was when they doubled the price of Xbox Live Gold but due to a severe backlash decided against that in the end. Game Pass, despite increasing in number of subscribers, is underperforming, massively. If customers won’t subscribe then MS will increase their revenue any way they can, not to mention that all of a sudden Game Pass is now even more value for money when the games separately cost £70 each. 
 

Microsoft believed that Game Pass would have been a bigger success than it has been, just look at their previous projections if further proof were needed. 
 

Now we’re approaching the year in which they apparently actually have some games coming out, lo and behold they are raising their prices. Game Pass will go up in price too, and likely the cost of hardware as well. Microsoft like every corporation care about one thing, shareholder value. 
 

btw are Sony fans responsible for my heating bill going up, and my petrol? Bastards. 

 

[Sarlaccfood]

Thanks Obama Sony er, people who do what they like with their money!

 

That poor third-biggest-corporation-in-the-world. Their hands were tied really.

[Stanley]

5 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:

Thanks Obama Sony er, people who do what they like with their money!

 

That poor third-biggest-corporation-in-the-world. Their hands were tied really.

They had no choice! They realised £59.99 was more than fair, but really, what could they do in the face of such stiff competition other than raise their prices? 

[Sarlaccfood]

In all seriousness, even though they’ve matched the price point, this has probably got more to do with Microsoft’s actual competitors like Amazon and Meta etc. who have all been tightening their belts in the face of an upcoming global recession.
 

Pissing money up the wall on loss-leading-market-share-land-grab endeavours like Alexa and the Metaverse are first on the list of cost saving measures from these companies. (After putting thousands out of a job of course)

[mikeyl]

The only thing necessary for the triumph of capitalism is for good men to buy Rift Apart from the PS Store.

[Sarlaccfood]

2 hours ago, mikeyl said:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of capitalism is for good men to buy Rift Apart from the PS Store.

 

First they came for the Demon’s Souls remake…and I said nothing.

[MattyP]

30 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:

In all seriousness, even though they’ve matched the price point, this has probably got more to do with Microsoft’s actual competitors like Amazon and Meta etc. who have all been tightening their belts in the face of an upcoming global recession.
 

Pissing money up the wall on loss-leading-market-share-land-grab endeavours like Alexa and the Metaverse are first on the list of cost saving measures from these companies. (After putting thousands out of a job of course)

Weird time to put up prices though. If people are going to be tightening their belts next year things like buying new games at £70 will go out of the window first so putting games up in price will lose them an advantage over the competition and lower sales anyway? 

 

As mentioned upthread driving people to GamePass is probably the ulterior motive perhaps?! Makes it feel even more of a great value proposition.

 

Anyway be interesting to see what happens over the next year....

[rafaqat]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

The last time they tried it was when they doubled the price of Xbox Live Gold but due to a severe backlash decided against that in the end.

Aah finally you got it! 

[Sarlaccfood]

45 minutes ago, MattyP said:

Weird time to put up prices though.

Mate, tell that to *gestures at everything*

[Stanley]

12 minutes ago, rafaqat said:

Aah finally you got it! 

They had nothing to lose because it’s a service they’d rather disband anyway and have everyone on the ‘one subscription to rule them all’. Just look at the absolute state of their monthly Gold offerings these days. One way or another their aim is to drive people to Game Pass, their entire structure is now built around it. 
 

Raising the price of their games, and ultimately (no pun intended) Game Pass, is something they will not dial back on. 

[JoeK]

The counter argument is this: Xbox Live Gold was pretty fucking shit at the time. People won't pay the money for shite.

 

Even Sony know this - people seem to think every game on the console is at this top tier of cost. It's not. It's mostly just their own big-budget stuff, or the CoDs and Fifas. The rest of the titles release usually fall into a more traditional bracket. And then we have the host of smaller titles - a huge amount of them are brilliant and they're fairly reasonably priced. 

 

And even when one of their own games ends up being fairly rubbish, that price drops down significantly after a short while.

 

People are happy to buy things they like, which really isn't a new idea!
 

Is £70 a fair price to pay for God of War: Ragnarok? 

 

I dunno. 

 

Was paying £100-odd for Street Fighter 2 on the SNES?

 

It was to me back in the day.

 

I'll buy what I want to buy, and I'll make the necessary adjustments to my budgets accordingly, and I think most rational people would too. 

 

If nothing else, you pay that much for a game maybe - just maybe - you might actually play it a bit more...

 

Nervously looking at my Steam Collection

 

At the end of all this - gaming is a hobby that has brought me a phenomenal amount of pleasure for 40-plus years. I'm not ready to jack it all in anytime soon! So, I'll do the math, forgo the extra pint or two in the pub each week and see what happens.

 

 

[MattyP]

1 minute ago, Sarlaccfood said:

Mate, tell that to *waves at everything*

Guess I meant for a luxury non essential product.... But yeah crazy times. 

[Sarlaccfood]

1 minute ago, MattyP said:

Guess I meant for a luxury non essential product.... But yeah crazy times. 

*Gestures at all luxury non-essential products*

[MattyP]

Just now, Sarlaccfood said:

*Gestures at all luxury non-essential products*

[Stanley]

16 minutes ago, JoeK said:

The counter argument is this: Xbox Live Gold was pretty fucking shit at the time. People won't pay the money for shite.

 

Even Sony know this - people seem to think every game on the console is at this top tier of cost. It's not. It's mostly just their own big-budget stuff, or the CoDs and Fifas. The rest of the titles release usually fall into a more traditional bracket. And then we have the host of smaller titles - a huge amount of them are brilliant and they're fairly reasonably priced. 

 

And even when one of their own games ends up being fairly rubbish, that price drops down significantly after a short while.

 

People are happy to buy things they like, which really isn't a new idea!
 

Is £70 a fair price to pay for God of War: Ragnarok? 

 

I dunno. 

 

Was paying £100-odd for Street Fighter 2 on the SNES?

 

It was to me back in the day.

 

I'll buy what I want to buy, and I'll make the necessary adjustments to my budgets accordingly, and I think most rational people would too. 

 

If nothing else, you pay that much for a game maybe - just maybe - you might actually play it a bit more...

 

Nervously looking at my Steam Collection

 

At the end of all this - gaming is a hobby that has brought me a phenomenal amount of pleasure for 40-plus years. I'm not ready to jack it all in anytime soon! So, I'll do the math, forgo the extra pint or two in the pub each week and see what happens.

 

 

£70 is high but then the RRP for most games these days is rarely the actual price for a game when you consider season passes, micro transactions & DLC etc. Sony aren’t exactly against that either as evidenced by the latest Gran Turismo, though to be fair most of their tentpole releases are pretty feature complete and of a high standard, production wise at least. 
 

Of course this announcement comes conveniently at a time during which they are negotiating their Activision deal. There was no chance they would ever charge less than as much as possible for COD. 

[bear]

3 hours ago, MattyP said:

Weird time to put up prices though. If people are going to be tightening their belts next year things like buying new games at £70 will go out of the window first so putting games up in price will lose them an advantage over the competition and lower sales anyway? 

 

As mentioned upthread driving people to GamePass is probably the ulterior motive perhaps?! Makes it feel even more of a great value proposition.

 

Anyway be interesting to see what happens over the next year....

I suppose the logic is that if you don't put the price up for Starfield then you'll need to wait for Elder Scrolls 6 to put them up.

 

"Starting with our 50 hour epic Avowed the price of Microsoft Studios games will increase to $70"

 

"$70 for a 50 hour game? You robbing cunts, I played Starfield for 300 hours and that cost me $60. Avowed should be $10 tops because it's so short."

 

 

[Stanley]

Avowed, there’s a blast from the past. 

[Talk Show Host]

There’s no definitive proof that games should cost 70. The idea that they now “cost more” and THAT is the reason they should be more expensive is totally arbitrary because we do not know development costs and because market forces are so difficult to predict.  Apart from a couple of games, all games which have cost millions and millions to make have the sales to back up their investment/development cost at 60. And then some.
 

Sony is charging 70 for remakes and their output until now is cross gen. They raised their prices since day one.   More expensive development costs have little to do with this raise. 
 

Microsoft has found the best way to add more value to game pass and make Sony look like a complete fool by adding their AAA day one, which cost 70, practically free with a subscription.  
 

Both of these decisions have little to do with development costs. These are just strategies and Sony is really ill equipped in dealing with what Microsoft is doing. Especially since their main strategy is so top heavy and their new investments will take some time to give a roi.

[MattyP]

45 minutes ago, Talk Show Host said:

There’s no definitive proof that games should cost 70. The idea that they now “cost more” and THAT is the reason the should be more expensive is totally arbitrary because we do not know development costs and because market forces are so difficult to predict.  Apart from a couple of games, all games which have cost millions and millions to make have the sales to back up their investment/development cost at 60. And then some.
 

Sony is charging 70 for remakes and their output until now is cross gen. They raised their prices since day one.   More expensive development costs have little to do with this raise. 
 

Microsoft has found the best way to add more value to game pass and make Sony look like a complete fool by adding their AAA day one, which cost 70, practically free with a subscription.  
 

Both of these decisions have little to do with development costs. These are just strategies and Sony is really ill equipped in dealing with what Microsoft is doing. Especially since their main strategy is so top heavy and their new investments will take some time to give a roi.

Yes I do think the move by MS is to drive gamers to GamePass nothing else. To have parity with Sony's pricing is a pretty good strategy really kind of saying "Our AAA full price games appear on GamePass day one" so further highlighting to value proposition of GamePass. Arguable whether the games are the same quality or not (that is on the gamer) however the messaging here is clear. You get our latest releases day and date on our service if you want to use it. 

 

Think the key thing here is MS are offering choice - play on sub or buy outright. Sony are not. Would I want to play the latest Sony game on a Sony sub? Of course I would because I largely just play through the story and I'm done. In the end its Sony's strategy which is fine but its the main reason why I eventually dropped Sony's platform. It doesn't align with how I want to consume games these days - barrier to entry is too high - I really don't want to pay £70 to try something I might not enjoy and then have the hassle of selling it on (at a loss for a physical copy) or unable to get a refund (for a digital copy) etc. Things may have changed on the digital front now and Sony maybe offering a refund on games that have been played upto a time limit (like Steam do). Not sure its been a while since I checked out Sony's T&Cs.

 

This is also the main reason why they are worried about the MS Blizzard take over IMHO. Even if MS offer a great deal on keeping CoD on PS for 10+ years - MS will pop it on GamePass. Again gamers will have a choice of where and what price point they want to play. Essentially GP lowers the barrier to entry for people to enjoy their content.

 

Suppose in the end its great to have choice on how you want to play the games. Luckily there is enough between the Xbox and PC/Steam to keep me busy and serve my gaming needs. Shame the barrier to entry on Sony's platform is too high for me personally but well you know things get cheaper and if anything comes up worthwhile playing at least it will be there in future... you never know it may even end up on a Sony sub service at some point. 

 

[Talk Show Host]

13 minutes ago, MattyP said:

Yes I do think the move by MS is to drive gamers to GamePass nothing else. To have parity with Sony's pricing is a pretty good strategy really kind of saying "Our AAA full price games appear on GamePass day one" so further highlighting to value proposition of GamePass. Arguable whether the games are the same quality or not (that is on the gamer) however the messaging here is clear. You get our latest releases day and date on our service if you want to use it. 

 

Think the key thing here is MS are offering choice - play on sub or buy outright. Sony are not. Would I want to play the latest Sony game on a Sony sub? Of course I would because I largely just play through the story and I'm done. In the end its Sony's strategy which is fine but its the main reason why I eventually dropped Sony's platform. It doesn't align with how I want to consume games these days - barrier to entry is too high - I really don't want to pay £70 to try something I might not enjoy and then have the hassle of selling it on (at a loss) or unable to get a refund etc. 

 

This is also the main reason why they are worried about the MS Blizzard take over. Even if MS offer a great deal on keeping CoD on PS for 10+ years - MS will pop it on GamePass. Again gamers will have a choice of where and what price point they want to play. Essentially GP lowers the barrier to entry for people to enjoy their content.

 

Suppose in the end its great to have choice on how you want to play the games. Luckily there is enough between the Xbox and PC/Steam to keep me busy and serve my gaming needs. Shame the barrier to entry on Sony's platform is too high for me personally but well you know things get cheaper and if anything comes up worthwhile playing at least it will be there in future... you never know it may even end up on a Sony sub service at some point. 

 

Yes, I agree. That is why I’m saying that Sony is ill equipped. Their cross media strategy is actually funded from their AAAs success in a big way. They are the company which generates the most software sales revenue by far (the first GoW alone generated over 500m!) and their whole expansion strategy is based on that. The problem is that Game Pass has made that strategy even more cumbersome than it already is, because it gives Microsoft so many weapons that Sony simply doesn’t possess. Hence why they hastily launched PS Plus, raised their console prices and continued fully with cross gen. They simply couldn’t wait for their initial planning to bear fruit, since they over loaded it with more expansion buyouts in e-sports and Bungie - moves that will not beat fruit for at least a couple of years.

That is why they are also panicking about CoD, which remains their biggest 3rd party revenue source. They need cash flow and they need it now because the game which they have planned their whole strategy on, is changing before their eyes and they have no answer for it. If you factor in hardware supply problems and inflation, then you get a proper time bomb. I’m fully convinced that internal studios are on fire right now because Sony needs to show everyone very, very soon when they can expect their next gen games. I will not be surprised at all if they actually announce some first party games coming day one on PS Plus (which would create a whole host of financial headaches because their business -as opposed to Microsoft- is not built like that).