U.S. PS3 Game Prices Staked At $59.99 97
Despite some confusion last week about pricing on PS3 titles, U.S. gamers (at least) will be able to buy titles for Sony's console at a manageable price. Gamespot reports that the official Sony site is listing PS3 games at about $60. This includes seven launch titles, including a first-party game. From the article: "Shoppers can now preorder Ubisoft's Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, Activision's Tony Hawk Project 8, Call of Duty 3, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog and Full Auto 2: Battlelines, as well as Sony Online Entertainment's Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. The pricing of Untold Legends may reveal what future PS3 owners feared--that first-party games would retail for the same price as third-party games." Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs notes that 360 games are already dropping in price, and hopes Sony will follow suit next year.
$60 for the game... (Score:2, Interesting)
...and then an additional $40 for the content [slashdot.org]? I'm underwhelmed.
Seriously, given that we know Sony intends to nickle-and-dime us for their online service, requiring downloaded content for their games, the fact that games are "only" $60 really doesn't matter to me.
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With Sony -- and they've already partly revealed some of this -- it'll be It could just be "We've got GREAT prices on games like Gr
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1 w1sh th3y h4d t0ld m3 th4t 2 b3g1n w1th. 1 c4n't 4ff0rd 4n0th3r $47
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Okay, most /.er's will think I'm some kind of troglodyte because I don't have any form of internet at my home. Well, it's not because it isn't available. It's because there's NO WAY I can afford it. So that makes it half as likely that I'll ever buy a game with episic content or horse armor. At le
Re:$60 for the game... (Score:4, Insightful)
You read and post to Slashdot. You own previous game consoles and games for them, plus the television to play it on. You can afford a PS3 and the games for it, but not an Internet connection and all the gaming possibilities that can give you?
You either live far away from civilization, or allocate your money in other ways of your choosing and therefore shouldn't be complaining about not having money for whatever.
that's a STUPID argument (Score:3, Interesting)
Then on top of this, when you re-sell the game, everyone has to buy the levels all over again since it is tied to your console. This is Sony with a sniper rifle zeroing in on the reseller marke
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Do you have a source for that? The only source so far that I have for this case comes from 1up.com [1up.com] and says :
The microtransaction-focused game, Gran Turismo HD: Classic will be the online-focused entrant into the GT-se
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The resale market kills their bottom line. There are plenty of strategies for keeping people buying new games (since Sony only gets money for one purchase of a new game, not anything for second-hand bin purchases)
Nintendo, since the Gamecube flopped, are probably going to bolster THEIR market by keeping Gamecube games rolling out. If you can make a tidy little Gamecube game that works on GC *and* Wii at the same time,
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They'll sell it for the price of a movie, no doubt. What's that in dollars these days for a new BR movie? Who knows.. $24.99? Then you add on $20 worth of tracks, it's still dirt cheap.
Perfect perfect purrrrfect
*miaus*
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Which console am I a fanboy of, ostrich man? (Score:2)
I'm just as worried about the micropayment crap on the 360 as I am about the PS3; Bethesda submarined us by throwing out that micropayment stuff long after we gamers rushed out and bought Oblivion. If I'd known this ahead of time I would have never bought the 360 at all. This time, Sony is givin
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Re:Which console am I a fanboy of, ostrich man? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're pissed off at a console because a software producer decided to charge for a ridiculous add-on? You can buy the horse armour for the PC version too, you know (along with other add-ons that I also can't be bothered with).
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Then on top of this, when you re-sell the game, everyone has to buy the levels all over again since it is tied to your console. This is Sony with a sniper rifle zeroing in on the reseller marke
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This is Sony with a sniper rifle zeroing in on the reseller market.
Well duh. They get their cut on the first sale, not on any resales, which may in fact reduce the first sale market a little. Why would they care about resales? (Given that past actions demonstrate an apparent lack of enlightened self interest in such m
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I read and post to /. when I'm supposed to be wo
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Internet connection costs, where I live, 56$ a month for a cable modem through Comcast, or 35$ a month for a slow DSL through Verizon.
Either way, that's a fee that is a recurring cost - you cannot just pay for it all at once and be done with it - nor can you just buy one month of internet and buy all your updates then as both services lock you into a long contract.
Some people have bud
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Please stop making up stuff about Sony and the PS3. Your hatred of Sony is fine, your continued lieing about the PS3 is getting old, boring, and stupid.
I get it. You hate Sony. You love the Wii. Anything Sony does must be evil in your little world.
The article says nothing about requiring micropayments for content. The GT story about having to pay for additional cars and tracks was talking about a demo for GT5. GT5 will have
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As far as nickle-and-dime for content you have to p
Pretty Obvious (Score:2)
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It's a pickle, I'll give you that. But that's the problem with a competitive market.
Loss Misunderstandings (Score:5, Interesting)
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Then again, as we know it's a calculated risk... I'm sure they've worked out how many games they're going to sell and priced accordingly so that they don't do too much damage to themselves.
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which previous consoles were sold at a loss? Xbox for sure, 360 for a while what else? all others were never confirmed to be at a loss.
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Usually, people replace the letter S with the dollar symbol, for example, Micro$oft, to make the kind of point you are aiming for.
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In the last statistics I've read, the average players bought about a dozen games for their system, which means 12 games for a Wii owner and 10 games for a PS3 owner if we don't take the console price difference into account.
If
I can't count (Score:2)
Conversely (Score:2)
Same logic.
hm (Score:2)
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And anyone who buys Gran Turismo HD at $60, then buys cars and tracks is a fool, plain and simple.
Profit? (Score:2)
If this is a permanent thing, then I've got to give them kudos for not letting the prices get out of control while still keeping quality high (at least in the graphics department...we shall see in everything else).
Although for me, it's a moot point because I'll be getting $50 Nintendo Wii games well before I consider a PS3 purchase. I'll probably eventually get a PS3 but by th
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The way I figure it, at $60 a game, the developer may lose money on each game sold, but they'll make it up in volume...
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They may take a loss on the PS3 version and make it up in the wii and 360 versions just so they can have a foot in the door for future ps3 games.
Better yet (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, and don't be surprised if we're eventually forced to view in-game ads all while receiving no price break.
And you wonder why people pirate games?
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People will always come up with excuses for why they pirate software.
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And you damn better hope that your hard drive never crashes, even under warranty, cause they probably won't give you your money or cars back.
No, I don't wonder (Score:2)
The price of a $60 game is too high, the $19.95 game doesn't have as much content as a real game, its insulting to think that I would pay $1 for that content (which I'll happily consume, though). The anti-piracy fea
If you really are against the PS3 (Score:1, Insightful)
"Glory [or defeat] is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." - Napoleon Bonaparte
ouch (Score:3, Interesting)
You really can't buy anything unless you know for sure it's worth it, or you have a good paying job.
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If I work more hours to be able to afford the PS3, I won't have any time left to actually play with the PS3...
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or you have a good paying job.
Well, that is the key to having disposable income. The gaming industry isn't a charity. It's a "profit driven lesiure time industry".
I hope this helps. :)
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launch titles (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, well, those polys don't mine themselves, ya know?
KFG
Sony facing harsh realities (Score:3, Insightful)
The decreased game price will really squeeze the developers. Developing a 20+ gig game, filled with high definition pre-rendered cutscenes costs a fortune. Combined with the fact that the developers do not know how many PS3s will be out there when they release their game. This encourages developers to stick to 3 to 6 GB games and co-develop them for the Xbox 360. Sony will have to pay for exclusivity, very few developers will want to make PS3 only games without a bundle of cash from Sony. This is Sony's nightmare: games which don't require the Blu Ray drive (thus making it look like a waste from a gamer perspective) and games which exist on both of the high definition consoles. There is even some discussion that Microsoft will pay through the nose to have Resident Evil 5 exclusivity.
One of the big questions is whether or not Sony will decrease the amount of money that it demands from the developer for every game sold. This information will get out because this is the big factor on whether or not the console will be profitable overall. The investors will demand this information from Sony.
Sony has to hope that Microsoft feels that they will never succeed in the console market and drop out. If Microsoft is proud and doesn't want to admit defeat no matter what, Sony is really screwed. Microsoft can spend 10 to 20 billion dollars on winning the console war, this is without going into the red or going into debt. While Microsoft is still making billions of dollars a year in profit, it is very easy to tell investors that Windows has reached it's full growth potential and Microsoft needs to enter new markets if it intends to grow. Microsoft can buy with CASH Konami and Square Enix. How is the PS3 going to do if both Final Fantasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid 4 are Xbox 360 exclusives? Microsoft can justify the purchases by porting FF13 and MGS4 over to Windows Vista, telling investors that they are encouraging early adoption of Vista.
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Just a side note... I think pre-rendered cut scenes are rare nowadays. Most cutscenes are done realtime in engine. I can't think of a game that I played on a console in the last 2 years that used pre-rendered cutscenes. And I think most people prefer it that way.
Textures and models take a lot of space, no doubt, but nothing like pre-rendered footage.
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Re:Sony facing harsh realities (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. So what better way to get everyone's business than to price the PS3 rather high at launch to get the folks who will shell out any price and then come down on that price later to get everyone else? How much were people paying for 360s and PS2s on eBay at launch? Sony might as well price high enough that they get that money instead of some store clerk with better access to the inventory than most folks. They can come down in price later when they actually have more consoles produced. Besides, if BluRay really does catch on and gets mass produced in DVD-level numbers, the console manufacturing price will drop sharply. That's an awfully big if but it's an if Sony has bet their console's success or failure on.
All games on Blu-Ray? (Score:2)
It seems hard to believe that Blu-Ray media won't take a bite out of either the profit or the consumer's wallet at retail. So either these initial titles aren't really on Blu-Ray disks or Sony is going to eat some profit (more than Microsoft anyway) on game sales. Wouldn't lower profit margin on sales dissuade game developers from the PS3?
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Repeating again.. (Score:4, Informative)
The news was actually that everything would be avaible in the game when you bought it but when you want to unlock cars (which you normaly win or buy with in-game credit won from races) you could pay for them instead of needing to win all races.
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And I'm going to repeat a question I asked earlier on, do you have a source for that info? The only info I have so far comes from 1up.com [1up.com] and i
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No price point has been announced for any of the items that will be available, nor do we know how downloads will be made available in different regions. For example, if a player is "shopping" in North America, will he or she only be able to purchase cars available in that area? Will cars be available in packs or as individual units? At this point, it's still up in the air. Furthermore, the idea of purchasing new cars and tracks brings up the
Affordable in the USA, but not in Europe (Score:3, Informative)
I honestly think Sony will make themselves Public Enemy #1 here in the UK if they try to sell a game for £70, but they've already shown they don't care about Europe in general anyway.
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£30!? Oh, wait... (Score:2)
Count yourselves lucky. Many PS2/XBOX games launched at £45 in the UK, or about $90. PC games are usually £35 at launch in the shops.
So to really experience the PS3... (Score:2)
So, for one system, game, and download, you're spending... waaaait!
Aussies still slugged more... (Score:2)
Sonic the Hedgehog (Score:1)
Re:easy! (Score:1, Funny)
How will this affect the rental market? (Score:1)
Nice to know (Score:2)
I'm glad there are finally actual numbers, since people in the forums have been consistently listing PS3 games at the hypothetical price of $70-100, which always seemed like FUD, and now we know. I assume these were the same people (or at least substantial overlap) claiming the Wii would be $150 -- which also seemed pretty absurd -- and then got upset when it wasn't.
I mean, I'm not going to buy a PS3 at that price, though I hope to buy a Wii, but I'd still rather have a little honesty in the numbers. When
not cheap (Score:2)
I haven't yet been conditioned to think that a $60 game is cheap. There are lots of people like me. Fortunately for us, there are tons of great $20 games out there that we haven't played yet, and there's always eBay. But with the new Gran Turismo No Cars Edition, that game will never be cheap, even when the sticker price falls to $20, even if I buy it for $0.99 used ten years from now. If Sony (and Microsoft) try to nickel and dime us all like that, they will get unhappy customers. In the face of viable com
Blazing Angels on PS3? I think I just came.. (Score:2)