Would You Pay $70-80 Per Game?

june 28, 2006

I am getting a sinking feeling about the PS3. Bluray will be cool, yes. But, there was an unforeseen issue with Bluray: Cost of media. Sony is forcing all publishers to release their games on Bluray media. That's great and all, except the cost of the media will have to be rolled into price of the game. And with the cost of producing a game skyrocketting, it is easy to see why Xbox 360 games cost $10 more than "last" generation's games. But, stick on the cost of Bluray media (when compared with the cost of DVD), then we have a problem. Games that cost $60 to publish on DVD suddenly cost $70 or even $80 in order to cover the cost of the Bluray media. And, I for one think that unless the game is exclusive to the PS3, it will not need all the storage. Yes, the storage will be nice, but when a game publisher is trying to release a game over a few platforms, I am afraid that they will go the economic route and just aim for the lowest common denominator: DVD. Sony execs have been dancing around the issue of game pricing, but they have said that it may cost more than $60 per game. That's on top of the $600 for the PS3 unit. Is Sony arrogant enough to think that at this price, they will make good enough market penetration? Sony has grossly miscalculated their PS3 strategy.


<< back || ultramookie >>