Phil Spencer Admits 'Something Had To Give' With Price Of First-Party Xbox Games

I’m happy with the price increase.
If, the games are top end AAA production and gameplay. Have always said that, would have paid £70 for a Halo Infinite that’s new generation leading and out of this world AAA wise in all areas. I just want the Xbox games the best they can possibly be.

Now we just wait and see with Redfall, Forza and Starfield, if they are worth that £70 to me.
It’s as simple as that.

@Dezzy70 couldn't agree more. If the games are incredible quality, then the price has never bothered me. Tbh, you'll always find them a little lower in cost anyway, I've bought multiple PS games and I haven't paid the full whack! My only concern is the gamepass route, most people really don't pay for the disk version due to having gamepass, so will that be their excuse if it's only A or AA.

$70 doesnt bother me i can wait and buy at a price thats suits me on sale.

I know this wasn’t the point of the quote, but what do you mean the series s is the cheapest? Why do you have to do the switch lite like that?

im wondering by those comments we only see a series X price increase not a gamepass and series s increase

@Endarch he did say current gen so i guess he doesnt think Nintendo switch is current gen

@EquiinoxGII
Totally agree about your game pass AA or AAA thing.
But time will tell next year when Redfall, Forza and Starfield release. They will either be worth that £70 price tag and top end AAA or not.
And if not they won’t sell many disc or digital versions.
Yes I have game pass, but I would much rather the games be big to end AAA production and gameplay quality.

Have already said the only £70 Xbox game for me would be FH5.
Xbox needs some bangers to get the general public rushing out to buy consoles or game pass.

Always remember sell a console you can sell a game pass.
Fingers crossed.

@somnambulance
Totally agree only FH5 gave me that £70 vibe.
Let’s hope the big AAA games are worth £70 next year, else I don’t buy or download on game pass and then get rid of game pass and my series x as well. I have been patient enough with Microsoft and big AAA games.

@uptownsoul
They will hold off for a while on Game pass price hike. Hoping the game price increase will make more join game pass. When that subsides then I can see game pass increasing in price.
I’m booked until May 2025 so I’m cool.

They held off alright, untill they actually had some games releasing. Easy to not increase prices when you have nothing to sell. Phil 'plays' the faithful and they react like trained seals, throw them a fish and watch them clap their flippers.
So why are Microsift first parties stuffed with microtransactions?
Sony titles have almost none, MS titles are stuffed with them, but they are charging the same price?

This isn’t about Microsoft wanting £10 more for each game they don’t sell that many and don’t need the money.
It’s about those 1.2 million Xbox consoles sold in November 2022, they want them all on game pass and adding £10 to a game making it £70 makes game pass look even a more better deal.

@Titntin I have played Halo Infinite both single player and multiplayer but didn't need to spend a single dime to have a great experience. Same goes for Deathloop, psychonauts 2, Age Of Empires 4, Forza Horizon 5. But Halo Infinite multiplayer did get negative feedback for microtransaction and I think they've solved some of the issues but then again it's a free to play multiplayer. How are they going to earn the money they are spending. Last time I checked Microsoft isn't a charitable organisation.

They must be hurting given all the money they saved with most people going digital now a days. But I guess that makes sense when they haven't given us a single high quality AAA since the 360.

If I ever cancel Gamepass though, I'll never be buying a Microsoft game day one. I'd sooner get a PS5 if I have to pay a higher price. At least there I'd be guaranteed a good experience with a first party game.

@Tonmoy Halo Infinite has been out a year. And even with the most recent update, the egregious desync still isn't fixed. The campaign was Godawful and literally handwaived away everything reviously established. The game was pretty. But if you play on 120fps the game looks awful AND it cannot maintain the frame rate or work properly with VRR.

Infinite had no business going free to play. And the drop in quality is proof of this.

@Titntin
I’m not that bothered if they are not up to their own FH5 or Sony GOWR or HFW standard the general public won’t buy them.
Redfall will be niche unless totally amazing fps and liking next generation.
Forza sill look and play AAA for sure but track racers are not all that.
And so far Starfield is middle of the road. So unless that has undergone an amazing wow look at that transformation it won’t resonate with the general public.
The general public 360 days of Skyrim have gone and moved on now.

@InterceptorAlpha
That’s why I keep going back to the PS5 it’s just pure AAA at its finest.
Though being fair I put FH5 up there for sure.

hmmm

consoles do well over Black Friday. price increase for those adopters of xbox who wanted cheaper than ps.

AAA games actually due for release... ms suddenly cant hold off increases.

spend 70b on ABK... Price Increase

MS fanboys thats fine Phil, how deep you want my tongue?

Sony raise prices.... evil blahblah.

both company deserve criticism.

I only buy AAA games full price on Nintendo switch since they rarely goes to sale , all the rest I play are either on game pass or I bought them for sale or even better for sale with Microsoft rewards points that I traded for gift cards .

I stopped buying games day one thanks to the $70 price hikes and a huge backlog. I extended that to anything that is not a game I feel I need to play NOW (any Zelda game.)

Anyways I expect before they increase the price of GPU, they either will first phase out the $10 game pass tiers, leaving GPU ($15) and GP family ($25) as the only options.

@Tharsman Yep, arguments about "inflation percentages aside" there's a certain dollar amount that simply crosses a line, and that's it. I will never buy a $70 game, I'll wait for a sale even if it's a year so. I have a perpetual backlog and the game will still be available. Sony doesn't run the sales they used to but I haven't paid over $50 for a Sony made game since launch day, and that's now the most I'm comfortable paying for a game (I was ok at 60, but after the push to 70, I've counter-pushed to the 40-50 range as my ceiling.)

For MS it's irrelevant as GP has these games covered, which is realistically what MS would prefer anyway.

GPU price eventually will go up, but I don't expect price jumps out of line with the rest of the subscription service industry. Apple made waves with a price increase from $10 to $11 for music. Netflix does their $3 or $5 increases. Only cable/live-TV can get away with $70 price tags for now...we'll see where gaming goes.

@Titntin FWIW I haven't felt a need to buy mtx in any MS game or NEARLY any PS game to date. One of the only ones I have felt it's designed to get you to spend is GT7. The tuning costs are severe and the prize money....not that commensurate with the pp requirement escalation unless you grind races. Conveniently you can buy currency for real money in-game in the tuning shop, totally by coincidence I'm sure. We'll see how FM8 comes out and if it's an even worse mtx-fest though. Horizon had the opposite problem where it gave cars and money so freely it felt like you didn't even need to earn them let alone mtx buy them. My mtx digital middle finger of shame goes to Atlus though, charging money to unlock difficulty modes.

FTC voted 3-1 to attempt block Activision buy out.

@NEStalgia I won’t say I will never buy a game for $70, I mean, last game I bought day one was Valhalla and I paid for the gold edition at $100 (included season pass of course.) but I would have to be extremely hyped for a game to do that again. I can’t even see another AC game getting me to go in day one again.

If Zelda Tears of the Kingdom happened to launch at $70, I’ll buy it day one. I’ll whine, but I’ll buy it.

@Dezzy70 No they voted 3-1 to file a lawsuit to challenge the buyout in the courts. It will drag it out for a while, maybe even years if it goes to appeals and appeals of the appeals, but it's not a block, it just escalates the case from the political oversight to the actual courts.

But you can count the times those suits haven't been dismissed on one hand.

@Tharsman Yeah I've bought Ubi gold editions that usually include 2 games and several DLC, but that's not $70 for a game, it's $70 for a game and multiple expansions and/or a remaster of another game" And I still didn't pay $100 for it, it was on sale within weeks.

Well Nintendo going to $70 is different because you know it will still be $70 in 2048.

@NEStalgia
I have all three consoles and are still on the fence about this.
If Microsoft took Activision and grew them and they made better and more AAA quality games then I suppose it’s a good thing for me and my game pass.
If Microsoft took Activision and they stayed sort as they are or more so even produced less games and of lower quality then it’s a bad thing.
That’s how someone owning all three consoles and game pass. might look at it.

Where's the article on this?
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ftc-files-lawsuit-to-block-microsofts-activision-blizzard-acquisition

@Dezzy70 Yeah, kind of the same for me. Right now, for my own preferences, Acti basically doesn't exist anyway. They turned into a CoD factory and just aren't relevant to what I want for the most part. Anything that could bring back their dormant IP is a benefit to me. Yet I don't want it to come at the cost of turning MS into what it was at the start of the X1 gen either.

@NEStalgia
Who knows what Microsoft and Xbox are at the minute or where.
They obviously not releasing games to my taste, big AAA productions at the moment, I’m hoping 2023 may bring something for me.
Nintendo also been a bit slow for me of late but of course BOTW2 May 2023.
Sony of course I’m loving HFW and GOWR, not sure what they bring 2023 really.

So been a funny old year for me and me big AAA games. Fingers crossed for 2023.
Trying to think what my best era was for all three AAA wise.
The early Switch first 2 years mixed with the PS4 and a bit of Xbox one was pretty dam good.

Whatever uncle Phil. Xbox keeps recording record profits but chose not to take the burden of inflation and rising costs and instead passed it on to the consumer like every billion dollar company does. God forbid if Microsoft hadn’t have done this they may have only made $198 billion instead of $200 billion.

The only positive is that Xbox has Gamepass so I don’t have to pay the ridiculous prices they’re asking, they haven’t released a game worth anywhere near £70 over 2 years. Oh and asking for a higher premium for their games I expect much less free to play mobile game type micro transactions in their titles because they’re absolutely riddled with them. Sony where rightly pulled up on GT7 having micros so I expect the same scrutiny towards Xbox games going forward.

FTC DECIDED TO SUE... THATS WHY PLAYSTATION DIDNT EVEN LOOK AT THE TEN YEAR DEAL YESTERDAY. THIS SH*T IS NEVER GOING TO BE OVER.

PLUS DIABLO IS GOING TO COME OUT BEFORE THIS DEAL PASSES NOW... IF IT PASSES :[

@Fenbops Did you have this comment in the can for 17ish years waiting for the games to change from $60 to $70? lol

@Dezzy70 I think with the time it takes to make games, having dead years is kind of normal. XB should start having some of their big titles next year, and we don't really know much of anything at all from PS next year. Maybe spiderman or the online TLOU game, but nothing confirmed. This was a big year for Nintendo though. Xenoblade, Splatoon, Bayonetta, all at once was pretty good. Pokemon if you're into that. Kirby is semi-big. I don't expect a big year like that until new hardware.

@DrJimmyRussler no and they went from 50 - 70 here. Thanks.

@NEStalgia isn’t Forswoken next year? It looks trash but it’s an exclusive 😂

@NEStalgia MS has what 20+ studios? that should mean regular releases.

ninty already have Zelda announced bound to be more pokemon, so a steady stream of releases and will still be a big year

Why haven't you posted the FTC story about blocking the Activision takeover?

@NEStalgia
Not a fantastic year for me Switch wise.
Switch for me was the best at the beginning
BOTW, Mario Odyssey, MK8 deluxe, Arms, Luigi Mansion 3, Yoshi. After those and maybe one or two more it died a slow death almost for me.

To many remakes that I had finished already
Super Mario 3d world, super Mario U.

Did you know apart Mario Odyssey and not counting the little Bowers Fury, in nearly 6 years we have had only one new Mario platform game Mario Odyssey. Dam shameful to me that is. And they don’t even have a separate home and handheld console to develop games for anymore.

@Fenbops
Good ole Uncle Phil, like I said you know when he is lying, his lips move 😂

@Chaudy
I know seems strange it not on here
Perhaps they gone sleepy time.

No you just held back all new first party games for almost a year and then announced a price hike in order to push more game pass subscriptions. Well done with an amazing business sense.

@Chaudy the FTC are not ‘blocking it’ and Xbox didn’t lie to the European agencies like is being reported.

@Fenbops taking them to court so that it can be blocked if they win of course
https://www.ft.com/content/c5a15ebc-4e4f-41b2-bcbe-9b8705cf8c37

@Dezzy70 Super Mario Maker 2 released in 2019 which is after Odyssey so there has been another Mario platform game released around three years ago. If I had to guess, another one is probably coming soon enough.

@Fenbops My condolences to the pound, big yikes.

@DrJimmyRussler thanks Dr monkey face.

@Johnnel
Good point but exactly what I was sort of after really.
They should realise one when the movie releases, would probably be the biggest ever movie and game tie in release in history, sales and money wise.

@Chaudy they won’t win and have no case. The head of the FTC is just flexing her muscles (again), nothing but PR.

@AstraeaV most truthful words spoken here. Ofcourse they are hiking prices just now, they haven't released anything worth a 40$ price tag in over a year and a half.

@themightyant little chance of standing up in court but now can be dragged out for years through appeals on appeals. And it'll get messy. The fact that the suit is about exclusivity primarily could get interesting in an epic vs apple scale as now Sony polices can also be questioned. I said earlier it's not inconceivable that ending console exclusives or paid third party content/exclusivity could end up outlawed as the outcome. It's a bizarre turn of events, including the suit grounds not being Sony arguments about cod but about exclusivity, when the main game concerned had contacts on place preventing that.

One big thing that may not be visible on that side of the pond is this is a purely political affair, and in hyper partisan America that's to be expected. This is 3 democrat appointed commissioners following party/administration policy points effectively reinforcing their party's position politically, a political boost to the Biden reelection campaign. The one republican appointed commissioner approved. Party line vote which is pretty explanatory and it's kind of the normal here.

Going to the courts however its another matter. First it goes to their internal court. Then can be appealed to federal court. Then can be appealed again. Then can be appealed to SCOTUS. We may still be talking about this in 2028. And Microsoft will have i probably revenge bought Sega and square and kept the games on ps out of spite by then.

@Dezzy70 Yeah switch launch was absolutely incredible. It did also die for me for a while as well. But I thought this year was a decent return to the better years with several big releases.

It used to be one new Mario game per console with Wii as the exception along with the NES which had 3. So this isn't that unusual really. 2 Zelda is more common only because of dual console releases.

@themightyant one thing that does seem odd to me... Sonys silence to the contract offer, or at all in the time leading to the decision. It's as if they knew the result already................ 🤔

@themightyant it's a very weird argument. And given the politics at play, it's likely they neither really understood nor cared about the specifics, it's just a political play to fulfill administration checklists of being aggressive on big tech mergers. This result was an easy political win since it's big and it's MS. It's probable they knew their vote at the start and played along.

But technically doesn't mean much. Just scores political clout. The courts and appeals will be different. The win here for Sony is tying it up so long PS5 isn't even affected. Again if exclusivity is the theme this could get weird and backfire on Sony. They thrive on that.I don't think Ms would mind giving up starfield. But not without dragging the whole exclusivity concept through scrutiny.

This leaves a big gap for Ms though. They're going to have to buy other companies now before this is done because they had planned on this filling out their roster. They either get to write off the next few years in thrd place as an x1 repeat and try again next gen or get moving buying companies or play Sonys game and buying big games. Wonder how much gta6 would Cost them for exclusivity and day 1 gp. That would be huge spite lol.

I honestly don't think Ms cared about hurting Sony before. I think now they're going to go for blood. They just got the 10 year plan screwed up for them. And they have 70b just sitting there doing nothing for years now earmarked for xb...

How about a new Banjo game? I'll plop the 70 for that