Ubisoft Moves To $70 Price Point With Next-Gen-Only Skull & Bones

[Expletive] you Sony!

...and yes, I blame Sony for this one.

Not surprised, it started with 2K and EA, then sony and now ubisoft, who's next? With the cost of living going up, games sales will get less and less every year, so at what point do companies draw a line at game prices. Surely next gen games can't cost £80 can they....

@GamingFan4Lyf whys that? You do know 2k was the first to do it

I thought that this was free to play as it has loads of costly micro transactions.

Paying £70 will be like being robbed by pirates. This will be heavily reduced in a few months after release like all Ubisoft games.

The more this becomes a standard the more I don’t buy game day one, and I was a high volume buyer.

I’m planning to not buy any game day one throughout 2023, unless said game is a Zelda, Metroid or Xenoblade game.

There's hardly any games that are actually worth the full £70. This game is definitely not worth that. This price point was literally the biggest reason I chose xbox and game pass over Playstation back in 2020.

@UltimateOtaku91 PS5 games were $70 right out of the gate. Then Sony charges $10 extra dollars to upgrade to a PS5 version..because...next-gen. Exact same game. No extra DLC. Just $70 because PS5.

Sure Sony had some free upgrade routes..but it was only a few titles and Sony has said "no more" after Horizon.

3D Audio isn't an excuse. PS4 had it, but Sony locked it behind the Platinum Headset. Dual Sense isn't an excuse. Dual Sense is an extension of Nintendo HD Rumble - it works in a similar way (push sound effect to controller). Adaptive Triggers are worth an extra $10? No. It's literally $10 just because it's PS5.

I can't tell you much about 2K games as I don't really buy 2K games. As far as I remember the $70 price tag was for sports titles and at least came with some extras. Now their price tag is $70 for the base game on PS5/Series consoles.

So yeah, I blame Sony.

Not a fanboy rant, I have a PS5 and I enjoy what I have played. The $70 just because PS5 is and always will be such a BS argument that will forever leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Most games (except for Nintendo’s) end up with deep sales a couple months after launch. This game will be the same and I see no reason to pay $70 for it.

I only buy them when they reach $20 or less anyway

@UltimateOtaku91 2k was the first to announce it, but you can bet that was already set in motion internally. There also been reports that Sony wanted prices to be higher than $70, more into the $80 range, something Ryan claims is not true but these days I believe a random child before believing a word Ryan says.

Anyways, prices for games on a platform for a generation are definitely something that is discussed with the platform holder from the get go.

@GamingFan4Lyf let’s not ignore that their upgrade system is such a mess that it is obviously a last minute response to Xbox Smart Delivery. I’m certain they never planned to give any free upgrades.

I wait for sales now. No way I’m paying £70 for new releases, the days of buying games day 1 is over for me. A mixture of the cost of living going up and also not wanting to feel mugged off by extortionate game prices is to thank for that.

@Tharsman I don't think Sony really had any upgrade path paid or otherwise. I mean, look at the work that has to be done to transfer save files. Look at how Trophies are separated.

You mean to tell me that Sony radically changed things so much that they couldn't bother using a similar system for save games and Trophies across generations?

@Kaloudz It's all just to increase profits and the greed of corporations.

They still made big profits from the old standard pricing and gaming has many more player's than years ago.

All good….this’ll be down to 20 bucks or lower towards the end of its first year out

I don't get the price increases. People can say they haven't changed in years blah blah blah...but why have they been making record profits all this time? It's clearly just to get the profits up for shareholders. With a ton of folks buying digital they eliminate a ton of the second hand market as well.

Personally i just play gamepass as it's already more than I can play with my limited gaming time. Work, kids, life just takes up too much time.

Simple won’t buy it.
I can get brand new release digital download Switch games for £40 each using the buying voucher programme.
So like BOTW and Mario Odyssey
Or maybe Splatoon 3 and BOTW2

That right there is why I've been subscriber to gamefly for years now. Can't beat the value of gamefly.

@Kaloudz They don't have to.....it's their product, they can sell at the price they decide their product is worth. If we showed them more often with our wallets then they would reconsider, but most of us buy them anyway (I'm guilty guilty some Sony games at 70).

Remove microtransactions and start releasing DLC content for free and I'll be fully on board with £70 games.

@GamingFan4Lyf note when you say ps5 that doesnt mean Sony as @UltimateOtaku91 states EA and 2K started it not Sony.

What a joke.

This was the quickest way to kill any interest in the game at launch.

So now, instead of buying it at $60, I'll just wait until it is $10-$15. I'm in no hurry.

Games have been $60 for twenty years now. Another tenner makes sense if we expect AAA budget games. Not every game makes money on MTX and if we look at the number of games that fail (Hyperscape, Babylon’s Fall, Anthem, etc.)there will be costs associated with it. Also, it’s still cheaper than games were in the 90s. But I’ve just been gaming for thirty five years so what do I know. I’m intrigued by this one, but probably won’t play it.

Meh. With gamepass and backlogs and sales, there may be a handful of games to buy, day one. Not even GoW Rag. I've yet to beat the first one, and may just get both on the steam deck. So it'll be cheaper by then.

It's obvious to everyone that Sony have very aggressively pushed the £70 price point along with charging £10 for upgrade paths too. Yes, EA and 2K do it, but guess what, Sony does it too! And more aggressively! I mean, Sony are charging £70 for Last of Us 1 remake! A game which (albeit looks very nice) is literally the same gameplay wise as the original. No wonder other companies are following suite when they see what blind fans are willing to pay.

Yet a month after release it’ll be down to $50 at retailers.

Not a chance, not after buying 'Immortals Fenyx Rising' for xsx and pc and both were cursed with crashes and cloud sync issues. After about 6 months to a year they just don't bother fixing their broken cr@p. So why should I fork out for more expense and frustration.

Easy wait. Already have more games than time.

@pip_muzz Demon's Souls was $70 at launch too. Nothing against the game (it's really good); but other than a couple small QoL changes over the original, it is another PS3 game with a new coat of paint.

I still don't understand this whole justification on how the cost of development keeps increasing as hardware gets more powerful.

Textures, character models, etc. are all created at a really high level of detail out of the gate and are then "downgraded" to be more "real-time friendly". With hardware getting more and more advanced, the need to downgrade and optimize for a platform shrinks.

Environmental details don't require nearly as much tweaking to reach target frames like they used to.

One would think that the less hurdles that need to be jumped over, the lower the costs of development because things are supposed to get easier.

Plus, as someone else pointed out, PC games aren't getting more expensive, only console games - and PC games have much more to consider in order to run on many different hardware profiles over consoles.

@pip_muzz in fairness that tlou remake is apparently working on making the gameplay more like in tlou2.

I will never pay that for a game. I am old enough now to have developed patience. It will be on sale for $30 in less than a year.

Oh, who could have predicted this would happen? Surely not me...

@GamingFan4Lyf I'm sure Microsoft will never raise the price of it's games & as soon as Activision blizzard becomes a Microsoft studio they'll lower the prices

@uptownsoul I am not sure where this "other studios started it first"

I will gladly be proven wrong if you can point me to the games that started this prior to the PS5 launch. As far as I remember Sony announced its games were going to be $70 on PS5 and a few followed suit. It was a HUGE sticking point leading up to the PS5 launch - especially in the UK where the price was the same in Pounds. People still rant about Sony first-party games being $70.

It was certainly not something you heard about on this side of the aisle at all.

Games that were $70+ on PS4/X1 era came bundled with something.

So point me to the third-party games from the infamous publishers that started the $70 for the base game before the PS5 launched (with a $70 first-party title in the mix) and I will gladly shift some blame to those other publishers/developers.

@SplooshDmg @uptownsoul Thanks. So I was wrong to blame Sony. See, I can admit it. I don't mind being corrected.

I still hate that Sony (and other publishers) bought into the whole idea that they charge $10 more for cross-gen games on PS5/XSX|S simply because...next-gen. It is a garbage practice - that hasn't changed for me.

Curiously, the only third-party companies that were charging $70 for "next-gen" are also companies that didn't support Smart Delivery.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft follows suit once it drops X1 completely. I doubt it, because it also has PC users to consider where a $70 price point is a tougher pill to sell. Time will tell, though - won't rule it out.

Sony made it "normal" and in the UK PS5 games are ridiculously expensive. Sony also didn't have any upgrade plans, I think that it's obvious. I remember the articles about 2K but it wasn't clear if Sony also wanted to raise the prices. The pricing was likely coordinated with the market leader, Sony's PS4.

However, Nintendo did it first with Breath of the Wild that was and still is €70 (without the season pass) in EU (that's over $70). Nintendo didn't and doesn't have any upgrades route between Wii U and Switch (I own both).

The only consumer-friendly platform besides PC is Xbox, because of the free upgrades and Microsoft's games being more affordable and included in Game Pass.

@GamingFan4Lyf 2K was the first but Sony was the first of the big 3 to do 70 dollar prices. MS and Nintendo so far haven’t delved into that territory.

At least MS is a bit reasonable.

@SplooshDmg Which makes it very hard to defend "increase development prices is what increases prices".

If that's the case, than it seems to me that console owners are footing the bill for all the testing and development that needs to be done on the PC side to make the various In-game settings can run on CPU x and GPU y with RAM amount z while also determining if said game can still run fine on a 5400RPM HDD (because I am sure those are still around) just to determine what the absolute minimum PC specs required for the game.

@Fenbops plus lots of recent games don’t launch fully optimised and need several months of patches to get it right

Comments here are pretty hilarious… “he did it first!” “No, he did it first!” …£70 games? I paid £70 for virtua racing on the mega drive… let’s all blame sega???!!!???

It doesn’t matter if 2K tried their luck with some NBA game, or EA tried their luck, or Activison tried there’s… when you have one of their leading platform holders supporting £70 games…everything’s a go. EA/2K/whoever didn’t have fanboys regularly defending the decision to raise the price of games to ‘protect quality’…that was all Sony fanboys. So let’s not all act surprised that PlayStations stance on pricing is being blamed for Ubisoft now eagerly showing support for it. You wanna blame anyone blame Sony fanboys.

It’s now Xbox’s time to vote with their wallet.

What annoys me more is $70 translates to £70 when buying games. And Canadians and Australians get ripped off even more.
Anyway, just another pro for streaming services.

As for this game…I also thought it was supposed to be f2p. Everything about this looks like it’s been in development hell…wasn’t it first announced the same time as sea of thieves?

@GamingFan4Lyf
100% Sony started this ***** upcharge on games. And guess what, the developers are not seeing any of it.

Sony honestly said that they had to raise the price to $70 because it costs them so much more to create a game on this next generation of consoles... That is a steamin load of *****.

If anything, these new consoles and the newest version of these game engines... have tools to make creating games way easierthan ever before.

Sony, it's for the payers!

Raising prices seemed like a self inflicted wound before the real inflation kicked in. Now discretionary spending is way down, retailers have warehouses so overloaded they're telling people to keep returns and just refunding them and letting them keep it because they don't have room to store it as discretionary goods sit unsold, including tvs, and that's when ubi tries to charge MORE?

These companies can't be so dense they think the mass market will continue paying these prices. It's becoming more and more obvious that exactly what I said Sony was doing even before launch is true. It's used sales baked into the launch price, and the launch period of new games is no longer targeting the mainstream market, it's targeting compulsive spending diehard fans of the wealthy persuasion. Normal people aren't expected to buy games at launch. It's just exploitative whale farming like mobile gatchas to body profits. Game launch sales are going to be pitiful for all but the very biggest games at these prices. Then executives will believe nobody wants console games anymore and will focus on mobile....

Dont trip out though guys, this game is already a ship filled with holes inevitabely going to sink...

The game will be on Game Pass within 4-6 months...
If not announced as a Day One title for XGP seeing as the very next day GOWR comes out... I could see Xbox signing it just to have something new at the same time.

And yes, Sony collusion has been the backdrop on this from the start. But now even ms is doing psychosis psychonauts2 physical for 70... But don't influence behind the scenes guided the industry to unify on this end it's stomach churning. These companies will somehow not understand why new games aren't selling like they did. Bit they won't care for the extra 6 months of profits.

@Dezzy70 the us only had the switch vouchers for a year sadly $60 locked and not a penny less forever and ever for Nintendo fans. Occasional 10% sales for holidays.

@NEStalgia
We are still at £50 per game in the UK for usual new Switch game price, like Splatoon 3.

@NEStalgia
For me it is what I feel a game is worth.
Is say BOTW or Mario Odyssey worth £50
yes very good value for money.
Is FH5 worth £50 definitely.
Is Ratchet and Clank worth £70, a good game but £70 is to much for not many hours game play.
But I would also Halo Infinite campaign at £50 is not good value for money.
They are not many games to me worth £50 let alone £70.

Once again the deep hatred for playstation is shown on here, there's been proof shown that it was 2K that started it but that still gets ignored.

And the most ironic thing of all, is that Microsoft are releasing psychonauts 2 on disk for £70!! And what makes that worse is that's a PLAYSTATION 4 version.....

If 2K was first just goes to show how Sony copy everything everyone else does. Analogue stick? Achievements? Paid online? Monthly free games? Subscription service (thats actually half thought out)? Anyway they really didn’t need to raise their prices just because 2K did. And those defending Sony have defended inflicting this price point on all of us with third party releases, thanks 👌

Luckily Ubisoft’s games go on sale every 3 days so no need to pay this.

Good luck to them, there are only a few games I would pay day one prices Sony and Ubisoft are charging for their games, I waited for Demon Souls to go to 30 quid used as I wasn’t going to splash out 70 quid for it new.

I think this pricing is only going to benefit Microsoft with GamePass as it makes look like a fantastic deal and Nintendo as you can almost get two switch games for the price of a broken yet to be patched Ubisoft release.

@UltimateOtaku91 To be honest I am not familiar with 2K or its games, but it is more serious to have a console maker raising the prices. It makes the possibility of other publishes following very high. Also, they did not have an upgrade plan or a Smart Delivery alternative and what they did seems like an afterthought. Also, even though I loved the game, I was disappointed with the 90 euro Horizon FW limited digital edition. YOU CANNOT TRANSFER THE DIGITAL SOUNDTRACK IN A USB!!!! You can only listen to it in the PS4 console!!!!!!

What I would like to say though is that in that in the eurozone many games of the previous generation launched in the 70 euro mark: Fifa, Street Fighter 5, Zelda Breath of the Wild (both Wii U and Switch), Final Fantasy 15. Some others though launhed at 60 euros with both PS4 and PS5 versions like Resident Evil Vilage. 80 euros sound way too much for a new game though and even indie prices have increased in some cases. Currently, I do not think I will buy anything else except Final Fantasy at launch. In fact the only games I got at launch this year are Horizon FW, Atelier Sophie 2 and Sonic Origins.

I will NEVER pay £70 for a game. If that means I have to wait until the Price drops, so be it. Ubisoft games don't hold their price anyway so I doubt I'd have to wait long...

Its not like I am 'desperate' to play any game on Day 1, especially with an ever increasing backlog of games to finish. With Game Pass too, I am 'never' desperate enough to spend £70 on a game when I have hundreds of new (to me) games available as well as my Backlog...

@K1LLEGAL The Sony fanboys are to blame, indeed. They're justifying the $70, €70 and £70 price because someone else does it and are using a special edition made by Iam8bit (Psychonauts 2) as an example that Microsoft does it, too. They're the most hypocritical fans in the world. Like @Bleachedsmiles and @belmont said, the platform holder is the most influential entity in a digital store and Sony is the first one to normalise that price tag. Period. The true irony is that Sony released Uncharted The Nathan Drake Collection (remasters) and The Last of Us Remastered at discounted price for PS4. Sony has nothing to do with themselves a few years ago. PS4 was actually good value, PS5 isn't. And PS5 will never be as popular as PS4 because of its value, even if stock wasn't an issue.

@Microbius There is additional costs involved on Consoles for Developers. They are surrendering some of their profit to the 'console' holder as its a 'locked' system and they are using their trademarks etc so. The Console holder is making money from EVERY game sold for their system so if they were priced the same as PC, the Publisher would get 'less' money per game sold for Console.

That being said, there is also some 'historic' reasons Console gamers became accustomed to paying more too - Cartridge manufacturing costs. When a Cartridge costs $30+ to make, you can't sell the Game for $40 - it loses money.

They tried to put PC prices up to 'console' prices because PC offered 'Premium' game-play but faced a backlash from PC gamers.

In any case, it does cost a Publisher more to publish to a Console - although for the Console holder, their own published games are not 'paying' to release, not paying to use MS trademarks, not losing a 'percentage' of the sale profit to the Platform holder etc so its more 'greed' from Sony to put their prices up as 'premium' games when they are making much more money from each sale (as well as profiting from all the 3rd Party sales) and not spending any more on their games development than others either. H:ZD and ME:Andromeda for example both cost about $45-50m to make (not comparing 'quality' here, just the money it cost to make - which puts them 'both' in the same budget). However, EA would get back a LOT less money per sale on Consoles than Sony does so need to sell 'more' copies to break even. Therefore, I could understand why 3rd Party Publishers want to raise prices - but have the advantage of multi-platform reach to 'sell' more games over more hardware...

Value is relative, and when you can pay nearly $10 for a coffee in costa in the uk atm, it doesnt seem that outrageous. I used to pay £120 for neo geo cartridges decades ago when £120 was a lot of money.
That being said, this looks like formuleaic pap and absolutely is not full price material, where ever that price point is.

Im also grateful for the existence of the subscription services that offer fantastic value and access to great games at reasonable prices. I may be be able to afford to spend, but gaming is best when its open to everyone, regardless of income.

@Titntin the cost of everything is going up from food to clothes to technology, so why should games be any different? So no doubt wages have increased for these studios as well so they need more money to pay their staff, so it's only fair their products (games) should go up as well otherwise they will be losing more money than the previous year. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out. The only ones not feeling the crunch are mega corporations that gave billions to throw away, hence why Microsoft don't need to raise game prices and use it to boast.

Also games have always increased in price every gen

@Banjo- I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if ps5 ends up selling just as much if not more than ps4. I think we will end up seeing a sales decline in physical games though this gen (I mean we will anyway, but £70 price tags aren’t going to help), and we will see an increase in subscription consumers.

We can’t blame sony though. These are all businesses, and businesses want to make money. We all have that opportunity to vote with our wallets. This isn’t the first time gaming publishers have show support for something that they feel will make them more money over value for the player. Back in the day EA used to sell cheat codes. EA was the first vocal supporter of Xbox one not allowing you to share physical games. Probably one of the first to put in one time codes to unlock multiplayer during the 360/ps3 days. Ironically the last two was in effort to fight trading in games…as it was ‘killing gaming’. £70 games are guaranteed to increase trade ins…yet its gamepass that’s ‘killing gaming’ now.

But yeah, we can’t blame Sony. The blames on us. Go over to push square and all you see is the vast majority defending Sony pricing games at £70. Pricing ps4 - ps5 upgrades at £10. What are Sony supposed to do? Say “no, idiot. Keep your money”? Of course they’re going to keep their prices at £70…till they’re £80.
It’s to ensure quality of these cross gen games that are still £10 cheaper on ps4. That still have micro transactions. Still need day 1 patches. Still aren’t fully taking advantage of the hardware.

Psychonaughts 2 coming out at an apparent £70 is the best thing to happen for all of us. Why? Because is Microsoft owned…which means the Sony fanboys will suddenly stop defending £70 games.
And it’s also down to Xbox fanboys to vote with their wallet too…not defend it.
This needed to happen. We need the vocal rage of the Sony fanboy being asked to spend £70 on a game. And as the ps5 install base grows. And sounder minds get on it. We’ll see these third party publishers for sure review their pricing…as people will just wait it out. Go for a subscription service instead.

More importantly let's focus on will this game even be worth it. Like all games it will arrive buggy maybe even broken. Any of those reasons and definitely not worth the price. Will it be fun and entertaining? Will it have lasting fun and replay value? I can't think of many games I felt like I needed on day one. More games than not seem disappointing due to expectations. Wait, unless this is your unicorn

@Bleachedsmiles I agree with you. The only games I have pre-ordered and paid full price this generation are games I wanted to support 100% because they're niche, e.g., Maiden of Black Water, that I also pre-ordered on Wii U. This IP was almost dead but the current-gen remaster is the best-selling Project Zero/Fatal Frame listing to date and that's great news for the IP. On the other hand, while I pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of Forza Horizon 3 and the Expansion Pass (that was not included in the Ultimate Edition), I have played 4 and 5 on Game Pass and that saved me a lot of money. Plus, Forza Horizon is not endangered. This generation I'm being more rational.

@GamingFan4Lyf What you say on this thread makes a lot of sense. What is interesting is that developing a Switch port is expensive because it's very weak hardware and the developers have to spend more time optimising. That's why there are a lot of Android games on Switch because Switch is basically an old Android tablet.

This is something that has happened before, e.g. Wii vs. PS3/360. Wii was Nintendo's first weak console, as you know. At that time, few developers ported games to Wii but they made some exclusives and a lot of shovelware. Anyway, weaker hardware is a challenge. I remember when Capcom explained how difficult it was to make Monster Hunter Tri look like it looks on Wii. It's the free-roaming game with best graphics on the console. People say it's Super Mario Galaxy but no sirs, the planets are tiny and the textures are almost flat because of the art style. Skyward Sword looks like a blurry watercolour painting and the world is small. Resident Evil The Darkside Chronicles looks incredible but it's on rails.

Porting games to Series X/S and PS5 is easier because of the powerful hardware but it's even easier between PC and Xbox because both run games on Windows and Series X is more powerful than PS5 although neither has many current-gen games to begin with. Xbox One X was more supported than PS4 Pro not because Xbox One X was more popular but because the Xbox development tools are easy to use. Series X/S being more popular than Xbox One and Xbox One X has a bright future ahead.

Bottom line is this new pricing is designed for people who buy one or two games a year, and for whales that make tons of money and love blowing it on impulse with no budget. It's not designed for the mass market. Let alone, when discretionary spend is way down (did nobody read Walmart and Target's earnings reports?) Any argument about what a game is "worth" and if it has "value" is flying in blind ignorance of the actual economic trajectory as stated by the actual economic bellwethers. It's like listening to a French noble in 1790 talk about how the price of bread is really quite justifiable when you consider the effort that goes into making it and the quality of the ingredients.

For me, I preordered literally every single game that interested me when they were $50 on 3DS, and when PS4/WiiU/Switch games were $50 with Amazon and BB GCU. When they stopped that I went to preordering or buying at launch about half of what I did before, or less. $50 was easy to justify, $60 was not. Mentally that extra $10 made me think about the purchase and not impulse buy more. $70? With maybe a handuful of exceptions, I can't see ever choosing to buy a new video game at launch. It just slides into an amount of money that makes one question the spend and never look favorable. I'm far from the only one, I'm sure. They're banking on $10-20 extra a year from the "average" gamer. They might see gains there. But I think they're also going to see launch sales crater. If it's not as big as GoW, or GTA6, preorders and launch sales just have no chance of growing or holding steady at this increasing pricing, even before the economy went to hyperinflation let alone after. I'm not sure if they really thought this through. Shrinking numbers don't look great.

Since I've gone digital I don't even have the used games savings, etc, so I expect I'll be waiting about 1 full year to buy most games at this point. I was willing to pay $60 for many things, $50 for almost anything, but in this new pattern, I really don't think I'm willing to budge over $45 for digital. So to me every new launch is a game for the following year. The net result is I'll be spending less into the industry I think. And I don't think I'm alone in that. Whether the "casuals" and whales make up for that, in their financials, we'll see. Revenues could be up while unit sales go down. Not sure that's their goal but that's what they're looking at. There's a certain price point where you just spook the market away and toward something else. Where you perceive it's value differently. $50 is low enough to be an impulse buy without thinking. $70 makes you really stop and ponder if you need it.

Imagine how awful Switch 2 is going to be without sales on Nintendo games and $70 prices?

@Dezzy70 Yeah, Nintendo, unlike Sony, strangely, does do the currency conversion at least somewhat. It's $60 in the US, 50 in the UK, converted, though I think that includes your taxes, ours doesn't, so after conversion Switch games may actually be cheaper in the UK than US. PS games more expensive. And in the US the voucher program was only active for a few months and then they took it away back in 2019, so you pay full price, or you don't buy. Switch is easily the most expensive platform by far, here.

@Titntin "£120 for neo geo cartridges decades ago when £120 was a lot of money. " That's kind of a self-defeating example, though. Neo Geo died unceremoniously and remains a console with a reputation as nothing more than a rich boys toy..... An exotic through and through. Normal people didn't buy Neo Geo, and the pricing is why. Yes, I'm aware of what it was, and why that was, but the point is, the fact that Neo Geo wasn't something normal people afford is kind of synonymous with why there's a price ceiling.

@Tintin @UltimateOtaku91 "the cost of everything is going up from food to clothes to technology, so why should games be any different? " BECAUSE the cost of everything is going up. Gaming is 100% discretionary spend. The more non-discretionary spend increases the less discretionary spend is available. A fact very clearly demonstrated from the WMT/TGT earnings reports with earnings way below expected profits, and specific mention of spending shift away from discretionary goods and towards mostly grocery, and even there a shift to store brand items which is their top indicator of distress. It was after that set of reports the banks shifted to recession footing. They didn't see it until then. And like I mentioned a "first in history" indicator is also the "paid to keep it" return policies because warehouses are so full of unsold discretionary goods, they don't even want the returns back. They can't store them. Target mentioned specifically TVs going unsold which is probably a good indicator of where people will/won't be spending in video games since it's a related device. Beyond that not all goods can just rise in price forever. At some point you cross a price threshold you just overprice the market until correction. Usually in the form of collapse, closures, mergers, and layoffs.

It's an irony, but this economy coupled with this pricing greed from mfrs has set the stage for the true worst case of total mergers down to the big tech/telecomm companies, an industry of only a few players cut from the biggest, and a heavy shift toward mobile/F2P, used games, and subscriptions. The industry is paving their way toward obsolescence at the worst possible time.

Gaming's either skimming the whales or trying to move upmarket into Neo Geo land where it's truly just a rich people's toy and not a mass market commodity. I do get the sense in the UK it's always been perceived more that way, however, from past conversations on NL, where in the US it's always been an "every-man's" commodity.

@UltimateOtaku91 Seriously, you've become one of the most console warrior people around, even on Push few defend PS and see enemies among XB as much as you! You've become extreme even for Push! Which is strange since you're multiplat...

It's not a deep hatred of "PlayStation" - it's a deep hatred of Jim Ryan and company. There's nothing XB fanboy about that, PS fans hate him more than XB fans, because they're the ones he's screwing. Only the "I bleed blue" loyalists defend him. It's just that now his avarice is affecting other platforms beyond his own. Jim's the one great unifier that console warriors can agree upon across the divide. Everyone's lives are worse, because of Jim, no matter what platform you prefer, and no matter your devotion to it.

2K didn't "start" it. They announced it first. Activision announced it second for CoD. These things, however don't exist in a vacuum. These things are discussed well in advance with platform holders, and concerted efforts are made as an industry-level push. There's no chance that 2K didn't know that was Sony's plan when that was announced, and that the strategy for pushing pricing up was not being coordinated among publishers and what at the time was still the only platform that mattered. If Sony wasn't doing it and strategizing it, 2K would not have announced it. They all announced it together as part of the console launch buildup.

@NEStalgia
Switch is good value in the UK £50 including all taxes. PS5 £70 including all taxes.
Xbox £50 including all taxes.
But really the value is personal and what you believe the value of the game is to you, especially full price on release day.
There are also deals in the UK and offers that help a little.
It’s petrol and gas prices we have to worry about over here UK as they are almost more a survival item.

@NEStalgia There are people here and on the other sites honestly saying that they have stopped buying games at full price. I think the comparison between PS5 and PS4 is interesting because The Nathan Drake Collection, Wipeout Omega Collection and Uncharted Remastered were all really good value but on PS5 the remasters, remakes and upgrade fees look like scam.

Whatever reason Sony as a platform owner and publishers find to justify the new pricing, it's going to backfire. What they are getting is many fewer sales and the die-hard fans and early adopters paying $10 more for each "AAA" game.

Your last comment is gold, sir! 👌

@NEStalgia Whats your point? I couldnt care less what you think of neo geo or its pricing. It was an example of why £70 doesn't seem like too much for me. You dont get to pick what I consider expensive no matter how many reams of self justifying text you write.
If you wish to live under a rock and pretend the cost of everything is not going up, be my guest. You wish to pretend that anyone raising prices to cover costs must be in league with the devil, so be it. I know enough from your essays to take anything you say with a huge pinch of salt....

@Dezzy70 Switch games are roughly $63.60 - $66 with taxes depending on state here. And no voucher program. PS (and 2K/Ubisoft?) is 74.20 - 77 depending on state. 2 or 3 states have no sales tax.

It almost seems like the publishers are at war against digital and solidifying physical at this point. Which....is just weird for many reasons. Everything is priced for physical, really. It's pricing built for a resale market with middle-men undercutting each other and resale of used content. In a sense it's Don Matrick's plan to charge for used game's all over again, except they're front-loading the secondary fee onto the original purchaser, in advance. In the physical market, that's just milking whales like in mobile/F2P. In the digital market it's just nonsensical.

People on forums seem to gloss over the discretionary spend drop that goes with inflation. And I still get the sense that's because a lot of the forum goers are relatively well to do and not impacted by it vs going on, say, reddit. The bankers definitely don't miss that correlation though. Even if entertainment executives seem oblivious.... The banks were insisting no recession for months and months despite the writing on the wall. But the day WMT and TGT came out with their report of unsold discretionary inventory piling up and a shift to store brand grocery, the bankers started running around in circles like their shoes were on fire and penning op-eds of "don't worry, this doesn't mean it'll be like the 70's!" (what? the recession 48 hours ago you said wasn't going to happen?) They legit didn't see it. The "data driven world" has their head buried so far in their spreadsheets they can't see what's plainly in front of them until it finally shows up in the data a month or 3 later. These guys make high six-figures and have 10 years of ivy league "education" and still can't see what the average truck driver could have told them 6 months prior. It's like the meteorologists. They update the forecast to say it's going to rain 15 minutes after any 10 year old could look up at the sky and figure out it's going to rain. The "experts" that run the world are more clueless than the average nobody.

I was on the fence about this, I was leaning towards getting it later when more content is released, look like it'll be for a sale too.

@Titntin Considering your response seems decoupled from what I said in great detail....it may have been better to not write it before re-reading.

@Banjo- Yeah, at first the forums gave the impression it's just me, that enough others are fine with the pricing, etc. Then I started noticing many among the people defending the pricing are buying physical at store discounts, are selling their games, etc. , and then started noticing many others saying they'll now be waiting for sales or going subscription-only. The canary in the coal mine should be that many of us saying that were the whales they've depended on. But the price proposition broke the fantasy, and we're leaving whaledom. For an industry (except Nintendo and it's evergreen formula) that depends on "box office" sales....making launch unappealing seems like a bad strategy.

Part of the problem may be the lack of console availability meaning the whole market is saturated mostly with the early adopters that will pay anything. A captive audience of the least restraint. PS4 game sales have tanked. So they're trying to exploit all they can from that overzealous new console market since sales in general have to be down due to it. But I think they're missing a detail that PS4 game sales didn't tank purely because people are waiting for PS5. They also tanked because the market that's not racing for a PS5 isn't going to pay even $60 anymore.

They think they're conditioning the market to accept $70, but I think they're missing that they've only conditioned the spend-happy enthusiasts to do so. And the casuals that buy a sports game every 12 months. What they're really conditioning the mass market to do is rethink the idea of buying video games at all, and enhancing used game's appeal. Sony handed GameStop the biggest gift they've ever been handed. They gave them raison d'etre a decade after they'd lost it.

@NEStalgia Series S and Game Pass looked like risky strategies not long ago, I think that they are paying off now because of the recession, chips shortage and overpriced PS5 games.

Simple facts.
PS1 (1995) through Xbox1 (2004) games cost $49.99 USD.
$50 in 1994 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $98.62 today.

Games have gone down in price, not up.
That may be no relief if you are struggling and cant afford what you want, and I do genuinely sypathise if thats you. But they have risen by less than inflation, so the outrage expressed by some in this thread is completely contrived.

What is an outrage, is that Ubi can take Black Flag, hang some pretty graphics on it, remove the fun and then sell it as a full price title.

I definitely agree with a lot of the sentiments in these comments about the $70 pricing being a bit much.

If you can afford it and can self-justify it, you do you. I'm not here to throw shade at 2K, Sony, or anyone for raising the prices, or even anyone that pays those prices. I can only speak for me, and in line with what NEStalgia said, it's one of those things where I start to second guess what i'm willing to spend for video games, with my own costs going up, my particular taste in games being pretty well covered by what's on gamepass, it needs to be something I care A LOT about to spend $70, and there are very, very few games that'd fall under that category.

I do find it amusing that people are treating a special website exclusive limited physical run of Psychonauts 2 as some smoking gun that Microsoft is doing the exact same thing companies that have set $70 as a base price are doing though.

In the context of Ubisoft...yeah, this pirate game ain't gonna cut it for $70. Hell, i'm second guessing buying Sparks of Hope for $60 now with where i'm at and I loved the original Mario + Rabbids so we'll see how this all works out for them.

@NEStalgia Not decoupled in the slightest. I advised I didnt think prices were too high and gave a brief example. Of course, you cant possibly have view exist thats not your own, so you had to say my example was not relevant. I could almost see the sneer on your face as you patted yourself on the back for 'rich boys toy'.

... and once again you assume I havent read or understood your essay trying to convince everyone that the buisness analysts of multi billion pound corps dont know anything, while you have it all figured out. Thats so rediculous im surprised your even trying to peddle it. I didn't comment on that because its pointless - anyone who doesnt agree with you is instantly either, stupid and ignorant, uninformed, or an enemy.

@Titntin and you can now get a Blu-ray player for $70 when a $700 ps3 was the cheapest one around in 2006. You imply that all things should indefinitely rise in price and that somehow makes economic sense for mass market discretionary items when that is an inflationary spiral that ends in a depression and the associated hyper deflation which is why governments are invoking historic interest rate increases to try to bring prices DOWN.

Infinite price inflation is considered a failure. Things that rise in price tend to be supplanted by something cheaper. In this case f2p and subscriptions are the likely conversion.

If you don't mind it, great. But you're clearly representing luxury market sentiments and not behavior of the current, or traditional, mass market which is what is at issue when talking product pricing.

personally $70 games doesnt bother me i will just wait and buy it at a price that suits me

@NEStalgia.
Of course outdated old technology gets reduced in price, thats an extremely poor example picked to try and prop up a poor argument.
Games however have become ever bigger and more expensive to make as what we expect increases. Of course they dont devalue like an out of date piece of tech.
Sony have never hid that they are charging 70 this gen, but this far into the gen they still sell everything they can make and games like gt7 have been doing well for a long time in the charts. Its no longer launch window early adopters, thats mass market sales.
Your clearly completely wrong. If Sony make a loss next year and game sales are significantly reduced, I'll concede you were correct, but when they sell 10 million GOWs @ 70, I know you wont concede how wrong you are.
Incidentally, I'd use xbox sales, but sales figures are harder to come by, and its mainly Sony and nintendo customers paying these rates....

I think we have established that we are completely at odds on this and despite our attempts to explain our positions, we are unlikely to align any more, so Ill stop at this point. I appreciate your willingness to go to lengths explaining your reasoning, and I assure you I have read and considered what you have said, we are just different. Please dont feel the need to educate me any further, as I dont wanna hijack the thread. Im not keen being the pantomime villian either, but I do state what I believe 😀

Well I’m happy with £50 a game and even £70 if I think the game is worth it.
BOTW, MK8 and Mario Odyssey are definitely worth £50.
I would say even though a good game for me Ratchet and Clank, £70 is a bit much. But HFW is worth £70 to me.
So far this new generation Xbox wise only FH5 is really worth £50 to me. Halo Infinite was a good campaign but considering everything else not £50 worth to me. Played in game pass anyway.
ACV I got me good £50 worth out of that game.

The point I’m making it depends on the individual and what game they think the money is worth.

@Titntin While I get your point on "outdated" tech (except it's not outdated, it's mainstream, and there's a difference), the point is, prices do not indefinitely rise on discretionary products. As I said, when a product crosses that threshold, it tends to cannibalize itself as cheaper options overtake it. Console gaming publishers have become cocky and arrogant and are setting up their own trap in the face of new competition.

There's A strong argument to be made that the PS5/XSX market only consists of the early adopters for the most part, as the machines are still not available to mass market consumers to simply purchase if not going out of your way to hunt one down. First party games come with a built-in advantage, especially in a calendar year where there have not been many new releases competing with it. I don't think success of games like GT7 or HFW are a particularly useful window into an industry-wide price-hike. Or even a first party one during a more competitive period. Those are tentpole games people buy the platform because they wanted, and in some cases is the only thing they wanted. Skull and Bones is not. For that matter, Returnal and Deathloop are not, and their sales reflect that high prices are something people are not willing to pay unless it's a tentpole, of which there's really only a few per generation. Coupled with the lack of competition of major new-gen releases in general, those titles are absorbing an atypically high percentage of spend. The bigger question is, what games is that coming at the cost of sales of?

I mean, NPD already predicted almost a 9% drop for YoY 22 for the gaming industry at large due to variety factors, largely stemming from economy and alternative activities reopening outside gaming. Price hikes are unlikely to reverse that trend.... So far industry analysts have been batting under average in most industries where the drops are worse than predicted. It's easy to miss the drops in this industry, as they are almost certainly calculating based on typical unit sales, and may very well miss in predictions that were consumers may have purchased multiple games, say in Q4 in the past, with higher prices and lower discretionary, may simply buy the one tentpole and stop there. That's why these sorts of economic outlooks tend to cascade out of control. And despite all the hand-wringing PS fans have made over the years about GP, I fully expect the introduction of Extra will post fantastic subscription gains for Sony....but at the cost of game sales outside their first party tentpoles, as the market is now primed fully for seeking high-value alternatives to past behavior. GoW will sell just fine as a sequel to one of the most talked about games in the past 7 years. It's what happens to everything else that means something.

Sony, overall will be more meaningful than Nintendo, as Nintendo has more or less created their own little pocket market that somehow defies all economic norms, though sales of non-Nintendo games on Switch definitely don't follow the same trends as Nintendo's own games, and quite a few games you'd think would do great on Switch end up bombing and outselling on PS, unexpectedly.

@Dezzy70 I think the trouble with the argument of "it depends on the individual and what they think it's worth" is that's going to have a very different meaning in enthusiast circles than the mass market, which is supposedly what's being targeted. I mean there's the people that pay millions for a graded copy of Mario 3. It's worth it to them. Audiophiles pay $400 for a power cable that cost $2.50 to make and is objectively identical to one bought from mouser for $.40 a meter because the marketing makes them "feel" like it's worth the price. That doesn't mean it's even remotely actually worth that in any practical sense or that a mass market will pay it when alternatives exist. "Worth it to me" and "rational price for the general market" are different things. Like I said to tintin, tentpole games can get away with it, not because the market really accepts it but because FOMO/zeitgeist/etc makes people overspend more than they're comfortable spending for a thing. In that sense it's an exploitative model, as all things in gaming seem to have become. Audiophile stuff gets away with BS because it's a tiny captive market of emotionally-driven purchases by a generally wealthy clientele that want to feel elite and that "last 1%" is worth a 5000% premium to them. Gaming is mainstream mass-market fare and can't quite get away with that.

That's kind of part of the problem. We're starting to talk about gaming like it's a high-luxury market with high-luxury market sensibilities. The way "computer games" were back in the 80's and early 90's before Nintendo and Sega and eventually Sony made it a mass market mainstream thing. And like I said, I do recognize that due to historical factors, based on some discussions on NL, in the UK that's a more normalized way to think about it than in the US, where you never had that NES-era commoditization of gaming and that "expensive computer games" perspective never totally faded there. Here there was a split going back that far where playing text-based Zork meant you were pretty monied in a white-collar home, while playing Mario 3/world was something nearly every blue collar kid could do. Games were like records and VHS tapes, commodity purchases. I do get the sense that never quite happened in the UK, so there's some different perspective going on from that side of the pond. I don't know for sure, but that's what I've gathered from other conversations on NL over the years with some other limeys. Considering the overwhelming majority of all "gamers" are playing F2P games on phones, F2P games like Fortnite (and Halo) on console, and the rise of cheap indies, etc...... it begs a lot of asking just how tiny an overpriced luxury niche they're trying to turn console gaming into at this point going for $70+ pricing when the overwhelming majority of the market is setting a barrier to entry of $0 as the norm. It's as though they have no interest in growth at all, and seek only to keep squeezing ever more money from the same customers, some of which, seem very happy to be squeezed.

They can charge $70 all they want... but new games haven't gone up in value, they've gone down. You have to wait months after release for a game to be finished now, and by then you can just get it on sale for cheaper. These game companies are going to have to re-earn my trust if they want me to even spend $50 on their games.

@NEStalgia
In the UK in the 80s yes video games and having a video cassette recorder and a good colour tv was a bit of a luxury.
But in the 90s and moving forward the standard of living improved and credit cards also got big.
Now a days most things are sort of affordable.

I hope it crash and burns to the bottom of the ocean. They will never get another dime out of me.

@Dezzy70 Hmm, really? In the same country, in the same city, you see some people buying luxury cars and others struggling to make ends meet and I don't mean homeless but regular people. We live times when anyone can get poorer very easily and the future is quite uncertain for most of the world population.

@Banjo-
Well definitely think the standard of living has gone up since the the 70s and 80s. For the standard working class.
I was born 70s and remember not having much at home and things were very basic and simple.
But now we seem to have more at the same relative age as when my parents were my age.
Also has my parents got older they seemed to have more.
I am only from a normal working class family, we have all worked all our lives.

@Dezzy70 I'm younger. When I was a kid, I remember having pretty much everything and from 2007-2008 on, everything was more difficult and uncertain for most people around me. I guess the 70s were hard for many people but isn't there a never-ending and fluctuating worldwide recession since 2008?

@Banjo- I've referenced the study before, in other threads I think but there was a great report for the US retail trade by a UK analytics firm some years back that described the reality of the spiral since 2008 (even before the new problems exposed it bare.) The trouble post 2008 is what they call "uneven recovery" to sugar coat it. What it really was was a transformation where the top third of earners or so skyrockted, collectively doubling to tripling income/assets in that time, while non-discretionary expenses remained relatively static, meaning tremendously more available discretionary income. And spend they have. Luxury markets have been booming as a result, and almost all retail sector growth since 2008 has been in the luxury market. There's never been a better time to be a Ferrari dealer.

The middle third got sandwiched with rising non-discretionary costs, and stagnant income, meaning reduced discretionary spend.

The bottom third for the first time since WWII ended up with negative discretionary income. I.E. insufficient funds for non-discretionary expenses.

As a result, while you hear reports of economic recovery and growth in the retail sector since then (excluding the past 2.5 years and the new problems), nearly ALL of that growth is coming from the luxury market and spending from the top third. They're spending so much, they're not just replacing, but surpassing both their own, and all of the lower 2/3's income brackets discretionary spend, resulting in "growth" but growth only from the top spenders. As a second result traditional "middle income" retailers collapsed as their market evaporated, and it has been steadily replaced by ever more luxury purveyors, as that's where the market that's spending is looking to spend that wealth. Thus, stores average people shop in have been vanishing almost entirely, and luxury boutiques and such replace them.

I.E. the majority of all economic activity has been re-focused around roughly the top third of earners. Everyone else is more or less not a participant in the overall discretionary economy anymore which has been the widening divide since 2008.

The past 2.5 years have shaken things up in a few directions. The bottom at least temporarily has increased in income, but the skyrocketing inflation has also wiped that out. The top has actually pulled back from spending somewhat. Their income is still high, but they're holding back and saving more due to economic uncertainty. But since they accounted for nearly ALL spend, that creates a whole new set of economic crises, as discretionary spend from high earners is what the whole system was hanging on.

The media always attibutes it all to "this is what the millennials want" "the changing habits of millennials" etc. Even today they still go with that story. But the study uncovered that not to be the case, and that "millennials" seem to have the same spend habits based on income bracket their parents did. What really changed is that high-earning "millennials" have shifted tastes with even more discretionary income than before, and the media seems to only cover this high-earning bracket either as propaganda to disguise the bifurcated economy, or purely through ignorance in not recognizing that that's the only demographic of a generation that has visible results because two thirds of it aren't really participating in producing such data.

Thus my worry about gaming that, recognizing this, the publishers/platforms are aligning behind making games a more premium luxury market focused on that same top-third demographic. Reduced sales at higher margins showing "growth" despite a shrinking audience, and making up for the gap by moving into additional countries to capture their high-earning demographic as well.

As mightyant pointed out in a different conversation on Push, console sales (all consoles combined in a generation) have remained relatively static around 200m a gen since the 80s despite all the claims of growth. Which is what Shaun Layden was talking about as well. With the consoles doing business in more countries than ever, that actually means, despite a population double to triple the size, console sales per-country are drastically DOWN from the 80's. And radically down per-capita. This "growth" must therefore be down to increased spend per-customer, despite the relative same number of customers for 30 years, and a per-market shrinkage. PC-growth can account for some unknown amount of that shift, however.

@Dezzy70 Well, I didn't really mean "standard of living" so much as perception of video games in particular being seen more as a higher end end luxury item than a common commodity. It was that way everywhere for "PC games" back in the day (where PC was luxury, and consoles were common commodity.) But I'd had the impression that consoles were kind of seen as higher end and less commodity in the UK all those years. Again, could have heard wrong, it's just hearsay from these forums, but I ended up with that impression of just how people tend to view gaming at large over there.

@NEStalgia

In regard to UK/EU, I think it's the way that British speak, somewhat ironic yet modest, considering many things a luxury but I think consoles have been a common thing like in US. Of course, for people that could afford them. So it's not like it's a completely different thing here but the way it's talked about. The macroeconomy of UK, EU and USA are connected because the recessions start more or less at the same time but each country here needs more or less time to recover, depending on its industry/services diversification, it could be more or less the same in USA depending on the state? I don't know.

The fluctuating worldwide recession didn't affect my parents but I have noticed and heard what I said above and what you're saying. The richest people are richest but perhaps more cautious and watching the stock market to predict economic highs and lows. The "normal" people are not as "well-off" as before because of the inflation and most people just don't have enough because of increasing life costs and stagnant income and they have to drive less because of the price of petrol, cancel leisure plans, etc.

I asked a friend that is an investor about why interest rates increase during a recession because I thought they would get lower to encourage spending. I was referring to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the price of food and petrol increasing and the declining stocks value and he answered more or less what you wrote in another post. When there is recession, the public institutions want banks to increase interest rates because if people keep spending then... I don't remember the whole story 😂. I just sent him a message but perhaps you can remind me. It's quite interesting.

@NEStalgia
Everyone I know has a game console or multiple consoles, mobile phone all the usual stuff.
You can get a lot of items on interest free in the UK and pay over one or two years so I think that helps people.
Even me sometimes even if I have the money if it’s interest free then why not pay monthly for a year.
There is no extra cost for doing so.

What? I thought this game had morphed into some kind of live-service online sludge. But they're also charging money for it? OK... bad luck with that.

Ah well. The gold edition with the full game is usually 100 bucks so I wait on a sale. So many games are made now with themes that don’t interest me that by the time I pick them up they are 20 bucks or so.

@Microbius Everyone who doesn't agree with this price structure needs to Vote with their wallet. If they don't get the Sales they want/expect at that price point consistently, they''ll stop. That includes pre-orders, special editions etc and put a lot of pressure on the Publishers who are 'desperate' to recuperate their costs as well as funding future projects. If the money isn't coming in, they'll have to drop prices to get those sales...

@Dezzy70 I can only agree with your assessment of change over time here in the uk. I was born in 64, so I was teenager by late 70s, but back then it was common to have two jobs to make ends meet. That is definitely not so prevelant today and most people have higher expectations of what they should be able to afford - moaning if they struggle to afford a third or second holliday.
Im lucky if I can afford one!
Maybe if I wasnt prepared to pay £70 for games I could afford a holliday 😂
.... not that I mind, I live a few minutes from the sea in a beautiful part of the country, I no longer need to escape like I did when I was a London lad.

I'm in no hurry. I'll buy them on sale, by which point they'll be patched. Anyone who dropped 70 on FIFA 22 or Battlefield 2042 must regret it.

I have yet to pay $70 for a game. I’m certainly not going to pay that for a Ubisoft game.

Patience = tremendous savings

In my mind, premium prices are for YouTubers who want to stay on top of the newest trends and I’m not a “creator,” so they can stick that price point up their Ubiquitous Soft places.

I feel like alot of people will stop paying full price if this becomes the norm. Theres plenty of cheap websites out there. At this point even saving 5 bucks makes a difference. They are already making millions with the price point at 60, theres no need to bump it up. They know enough people will pay for it, so they dont care. We need to let them know its not okay, just dont pay full price.

@BAMozzy this 👌