The big topic that's dominating the industry this week is the Nintendo Switch 2, and specifically the higher game prices that it's set to implement for first-party titles - a whole lot has already been said about the Mario Kart World situation!
As mentioned in our "huge win for Xbox" feature earlier today, this obviously makes Xbox look particularly generous for putting all its first-party titles on Game Pass, but it also presents an opportunity for Microsoft to increase game prices - or if not Microsoft, then any other third-party publisher that wants to put its games on Xbox consoles.
Could this start with GTA 6 later in the year? We know that Take-Two likes money, and we know that people are going to buy Rockstar's latest game in record numbers, so it wouldn't come as a surprise to see it get a premium price.
Then again, are people really willing to pay this for games other than GTA? Xbox has become a lot more about Game Pass in recent years, and we know that many third-party games sell best on PlayStation and Nintendo rather than Xbox.
We've also run a bunch of polls here at Pure Xbox in the past, asking the community how many games you buy and what the ratio is compared to playing them on Xbox Game Pass. The result? It seems most of you aren't buying that many games these days, so pushing prices beyond $69.99 could be detrimental on this platform at least.
And of course, how many developers are making games like Mario Kart World and GTA 6 that can command such a fee? Would Premium Editions get even more expensive? To me at least, I don't think it would be a wise move.
But how about you? Let us know whether you'd be willing to pay $80 for Xbox games down below.
What did you pick in the poll? Come share it with the Pure Xbox community in the comments!
Comments 43
I think the most I've paid for a game was close to $50 for Persona 5 back in the PS3 days. First game I've preordered.
If the prices go up, I'll play cheaper indie games and my 700+ games backlog.
I'm 46 years old, so I grew up on the NES and SNES back in the 80s and 90s. I remember some games on the SNES such as Street Fighter 2 costing $69.99 back in the early 90s. That's about $147 when adjusted for inflation today. In addition, when the first Playstation launched in the U.S. in 1995 for $299, that equates to about $613 today.
We are paying $499 for an Xbox Series X and PS5 today, which to me is good along with games costing $69.99. This also proves that GamePass is a fantastic deal. The last time I purchased a game was back in 2014. I play on GamePass only.
When adjusted for inflation, paying $70 and perhaps $100 for GTA 6 is actually not so bad if you really think about it.
I can't think of a single game that I would be willing to spend $80 on. I have been in a wait for $20 sale mentality for a few years now.
I mostly get games on sale so that won't change I only buy games day one I know I'll be into and get value out of.
On a gamepass price increase that will most likely come soon I'm not too bothered once its not a crazy increase its still amazing value!
Just as for £70 / $70 games it will depend on the game. But it will make me even more reluctant to buy day 1.
But here's the thing, I ALREADY don't buy many games day 1 because i'd rather wait 6-12 months for patches, added features, DLC etc. I just don't understand paying the most money for the worst version of the game. Too many games release rough or broken.
Game Pass price hikes are inevitable, but I won't welcome them. But again the reality is I haven't EVER paid a full monthly price for Game Pass. I did the £1 conversion from Games with Gold for 3 years and then have topped it up through Rewards and the occasional cheap pre-paid card for the last 7 years.
In theory, a game can be worth $80, but I have yet to see such a game this generation. So I can only mention a few such games from the past:
Street Fighter 2
Max Payne
Midnight Club II
The problem with Nintendo charging such a high price is that their games rarely come down in price after release, and even if they do it isn’t by much. At least with PlayStation and Xbox, games come down in price quite quickly.
I used to buy all the games I wanted at full price and on the day of release, both for single-player and multiplayer games.
Over the past five years or so I’ve been less and less inclined to play online multiplayer, which has led a marked change in my purchasing habits.
On the rare occasion a multiplayer game takes my fancy I’ll likely buy it close to release in order to play before the player base dwindles , but I’ll make use of CDKeys or similar sites to get large discounts. For single-player, I’m more than happy to wait a month, six months, a year or even longer to get it dirt cheap.
As for £80 for a game? Not a chance!! As much as I’ve loved Mario Kart since the original, I just can’t see where £80 of value comes in, especially since Nintendo’s online infrastructure is so poor, and the Switch 2 presentation has done nothing to make me think online play will be any better than it currently is. That leaves me look at the best part of £100 for a game I’ll only ever play solo. Absolutely struggling to justify that to myself.
The thing is, eventually I will buy GTA 6, because I know that inevitably the price will go down, and I have patience. Nintendo games almost never go down in price. Aside from the standard Mario and Donkey Kong games, nothing stood out to me with the Switch 2, and certainly nothing worth the $80 price tag.
As I thought seemingly people dont want GP increase and will consider unsubbing.
I noticed all the praise comes mostly from people who buy with rewards or stacked for years ahead (myself included). absolutely in such caise its a steal and a no-brainer.
But how many will actually sub monthly for full price at lets say $23-25 USD, when a lot of great games are not on service anyways?
1st quarter in 2025 we had KCD2, AC shadows and MH wilds - none on the service.
And does average player has time for all this?
Just a food for thought.
@themightyant funnily this argument actually devalues game pass as main feature is day 1 lol.
Also, MS already nerfing conversions and MS rewards. Will you be paying $23-25/month when your stacking ends?
@ChopperCampbell agree on price hike but literally MK world would be one of the few games that still worth it due to infinite replayability.
I'm in Camp Stupid, as I don't tend to play games on the Game Pass even though I have GPU, and I also tend to pre-order whatever games I want, which probably equates to at least one a month. I also have a HUGE backlog of games that I own that I have not yet played. And when I say huge, I mean it likely stretches into the several hundred.
However, I am trying to do better. Last year I bought fewer games day one than I did in 2023, and my aim is to buy fewer still this year. What I will say though is that I am a sucker for a decent Collector's Edition. This year alone I have bought the Collector's Editions for Assassin's Creed: Shadows, Doom: The Dark Ages, Elden Ring: Nightreign and Death Stranding 2. So that alone has cost me close to a grand... 🤪
At £70/80 no chance. Same for any console. Even GTA.
Most of my day 1 stuff I get physical so only paid £48 for mhwilds.
£50/55is my limit these days, there’s so many games I haven’t played I can wait, use gp or extra to fill in the quiet times.
@Millionski I agree. One of the problems with Day 1 Game Pass is that games are often at their worst day 1 when you most want to play. I tried STALKER 2 for example and had so many bugs in the first hour that I dropped it. Until just now I had forgotten about this game entirely. If you don't play it when it's at the zeitgeist it often gets forgotten.
I reckon in the next 3 years I might be able to add another 6-12 months to my Game Pass Ult via rewards and then, finally, have to pay for it. So 2029 prices are going to be a shock to the system.
There is an internal argument that the £85 in total I paid for Perfect Dark (£60 game plus £25 expansion pack) was ultimately worth the money. But I could also use that expansion pack with other titles.
£80 is only worth it if they throw in a year of the online sub with the price.
Ultimately nobody asked the industry to go all in on £300m+ development costs. The best game of the last decade is Balatro and I can only imagine how cheap that cost one guy to make.
If you’re not down with that we got two words for you!!!
GAME PASS!!!!
I voted no because I pay more indie games than anything especially metroidvanias so deffo not be paying 80🤣 f AAA 💩😎🤣
Only for a BGS single-player RPG
If a AAA game comes out it goes on my wishlist and happy to wait for a sale. I tend to wait for £50 or less and that will be using rewards points for a £25 voucher. Gamepass Ultimate keeps me occupied along with the cheaper owned games I have on my back log. When the price of gp goes up I will probably continue stacking using cd keys as for me still provides good value
Well what can I say, I'll respect the price if the product is a big 4k 60fps AAA game and it has ray-tracing plus all of the bells and whistles (a nine digit cost in price) compared to let's say a Nintendo game that could & will be at 1080p 30fps with a higher polly count slightly higher than the playstation 2.
Some developers/publishers don't deserve the price tag in my eyes & many will abuse it with broken releases so i am slightly against it but if it's good and not broken on release I'll pay it.
It’s rare if I spend more than $50 for a game.
The only game I did that for last year was with Paper Mario TTYD ($60) and that was to send a message to Nintendo that I want more original-style Paper Mario titles.
So no, I would not buy a game for $80. I’m thinking of getting the Switch 2 as I’m a big Nintendo fan but I’ll only get Mario Kart World if I can get that bundle to save $30.
Popular opinion in gaming community is that Xbox is the only developer that could rise their game price to 100 $/€ and it would be still a bargain for the quality you get, and I totally agree!
@RadioHedgeFund nintendo dont have those budgets yet they are first to push $80.
THey just know they can get away with this.
Again its the matter of having great and popular games that people want no matter the cost. So boo for prices and kudos for games like mario kart world that looks super cool and big step up over MK8D (which is great too).
And we have games essenittaly "for free" via GP and people still dont have interest in those.
Games is what matters in the end of the day.
Never. I will only generally get games that are $20 or under and I might go as high as $20 - $30 if it a really good game that I just have to play. In all likelihood you will see games go from launching at $80 here to about $110.
No.
I would not pay £80 for a game regardless of it being from Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony or any other publisher.
I will continue with my GamePass subscription for as long as I see value in it and just buy the games I want to own on a sale or at most, for a sensible price.
I love games and gaming in general but I just wouldn't be able to justify it to myself, let alone to my better half.🙃.
At that price range I won't take as many risks on day one purchases and will certainly wait for sales or for them to go on Gamepass / PS Plus.
A price increase on anything non essential like gaming is just going to mean me being way more selective about my purchases.
The last game I purchased on Xbox was Dragon Ball FighterZ at launch, so… no… Xbox is for Gamepass.
As of right now, if Sony makes that jump in price for games, I’m probably going to phase out on PS. I will be buying games on Switch 2 even if I don’t like the price.
I don't pay for games at $70. $60 was my breaking point, so that's just not happening.
I wait for sales. I have a huge backlog, and indie games have increasingly been out-performing "AAA" games quality wise. I'm not missing out on anything.
It takes a rare game for me to buy at that price (or even the current standards) but if it's right, and it looks great, and the dev has good pedigree, then yes.
£70 = $92. Americans don't know how lucky they are!
no video game is worth no damn $80. are we serious?
Pretty sure I paid more than that for the Phantasy Star games, and that's not even adjusting for inflation.
Hypothetically I'd be happy to pay it if the game was complete, no microtransaction nickel and diming after purchase. Unfortunately that isn't reality, the industry will jack prices while cramming more microtransactions.
@cross717 Dollar was strong vs other currencies early nineties,
for the snes here in the Netherlands I paid like 199 (guilders) for games like Final Fight and U.N Squadron in 1992 , which equates to 200 dollars in 2025... so yeah gaming was more expensive then...
But the amount of sales for games back then were nowhere near what they sell today, and cartridges were very expensive to manufacture then.
Now, I completely understand that a lot of work and production goes into making games these days, but I won't pay premium price for a game I would knowingly only play till completion for 20-30 hours.
I'd quite happily pay a premium price if I thought I'd be playing the game for the foreseeable future and it was regularly updated with new content.
Nope. I'm aware of the development time for those games but... Video game market is bigger now compared to the 90ies. And let's be honest: there is too much games on the market nowadays. You need to make a coup quickly due to the fact that games are launched every week !! As an old schmuck, I'm furious with studios in 2025. They keep launching games "unfinished" all the time...
Besides it's studios which imposed a 7 hours total length. In fact big studios have no new ideas and keep buying small studios with still new concepts or new ideas.
switch first party games are a tiny fraction s to what games like god of war ragnarok horizon forbidden west and spiderman 2 cost yet switch 2 games wont come even close to the 200 million dollar plus it cost to make those games yet they will sell games like mario kart for 80 bucks.. it is all about greed for nintendo now..
I would only spend £75 ($80) on premium games like GTA 6, Crimson Desert, and Ghost of Yotei.
It's not really comparable in my opinion. First off, only physical Switch games that are $70 digital will be $80 physical. And Nintendo's gonna have them be $60/$70 or $70/$80 on a case by case basis. But people still buy physical for Nintendo, where as they don't buy or make many physical games for Xbox between digital sales and GP, and Sony is trying to push for digital-only. The markets between the three consoles are too different for direct comparisons like these. Another example is Xbox, PS, & Nintendo all have Subscription Services for online, but with all the different tiers, their pricings, & their offerings, they can't be compared one to one.
First off I rarely ever buy new $70 games as it is, it's gotta be something that I REALLY want badly, like I know 100% sure that I definitely want to play it and will definitely enjoy it sort of thing, and even then I seem to wait for a sale most of the time.
As for Gamepass, Ultimate already got too expensive for me to justify considering the quality of games they've been releasing lately. I downgraded to Core.
My faith in Xbox has diminished and I only use it for GP now; Sony gets my purchases. That being said, I'm very fascinated to see where Team Green is going though.
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