Xbox first party titles expected to hit $80 USD this holiday; Game Pass pricing currently unchanged.

  • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldOP
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    2 days ago

    Trying to raise the “standard” price to $80 will have very nice ripple effects of more pricing diversity, where each game will really consider what it’s actually worth, which we haven’t had for a long time. Even now we’re getting first-party Microsoft titles releasing at $20, $30, and $50.

    • samus12345@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      I think all it will do is raise the ceiling of what publishers are willing to price games at. If they think they can get away with it, they’ll charge $80 instead of $70, with the rest being $70 and less just like it already is now.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Steam doesn’t advertise at the scale of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. It won’t have a ripple effect because it won’t change the degree to which artificial hype drives people towards the “Buy” button.

      • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 days ago

        A lot of games priced at $70 right now are having a rough go of it, so charging more on top of that isn’t going to help, but there are the likes of South of Midnight and Clair Obscur launching at $50. If your game isn’t as hot of a commodity as Mario Kart, you’re probably going to try to lure people in with a lower price.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          there are the likes of South of Midnight and Clair Obscur launching at $50.

          Beautiful games, both. But again, they aren’t having the full court press of advertising like a new Call of Duty or Final Fantasy or Diablo would.

          That’s the real cost savings. You don’t need to change $80+ for a game if you aren’t focused entirely on presale figures to justify your studio’s budget.

          Incidentally, you also get to focus on a better game. Balatro didn’t need wall to wall subway ads in New York to end up on everyone’s phones.

      • Yermaw@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        Steam doesn’t need to. It’s got the steam sale and a hundred million people to share memes of “sale so good spent all my money no time to play all the games I bought in such massive sale”

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          I bought it long before the steam release, back when multiplayer was in experimental. So glad that there are 1000s of hours that were never tracked so I don’t need to see those.