In the 80's and early 90's, the average NES and SNES game was $80-100 here in Canada.

If that's true, I will just buy them used or wait for the good deals like I do now.

I recall the early PS1 games retailing at £50, that's $79 at today's exchange rate, so I don't understand why it's a problem now.

I've even got Atari 2600 games in the loft with £20 price tags on them from the late '70s, early '80s. I dread to think what that equates to now.

games in this generation don't cost 60$ it's cost 80$ or more , don't forget DLC (disk black ops and dlc cost 120$ )

If that happens, I will wait for sales or just buy them used.

UHHHHHHHHH... Neo Geo games were that much and more back in the day and Electronics Boutique back in the day had a return policy which allowed you to basically beat a game in a week, then return it and get your money back. People complain about everything these days and it's really getting old. Can't afford it then don't worry about it.

depends on dev kits

Take note

I predict in the future you'll buy 1/4 or less of a game at full price then pay for the rest, by that time most gamers will adapt to become officially mentally challenged...

I recommend to watch this video and you'll understand:

i would gladly pay $70 for games , if they would be 15+ hours.

who is dumb enough to pay $70 for a game nowadays ? most games drop in price after like 1 month.

be a smart shopper. let the dumb masses buy day 1 with less content, expensive and buggy game.

good things come to those who wait.

Steam and Amazon, thats where my money goes, I cannot remember the last games besides Skyrim and Starcraft 2 on PC, Demons Souls PS3, Dark Souls PS3 that I paid $50-$65 for....maybe Halo 3, I dunno....they are just not worth it...

ohh Uncharted 2, bought that day one, Rented Uncharted 3, damn glad I did as i thought it was vastly inferior to 2, I bought Resistance 1 the day I bought my ps3 on launch day back in 2006 ...lol.......hmmm....gears of war 1 i bought for $65

hell, the rest i rented or bought on sale

I rent console games with my blockbuster game pass for $14 a month, play every single game i want and buy pc games on sale on steam 90% of the time

very, very few games are actually worth $65 to me

I have 220 steam games, most were $5

many were $2.50 and a few were $10-$20

Games didn't go up this generation. Most of the last generation games were $59.99. Toward the end I think they dropped about $10 but most of the life of the PS2 and Xbox games were what they cost now.

they will not be 70 dollars

This article is fairly black and white; you buy one $60 game then throw the other $40 away? Or you're "forced" to spend it? First of all, game prices go down all the time. With so many sequels and "flops", now, games are often lowered to $20-30 within a few months of release. And game prices have remained steady for 25 years, with the recent $10 increase being a minor shift upwards that, even if it is a false inflation, is unlikely to happen again soon. Gamers will stop paying for software if the value doesn't "seem" right, and another $10 increase doesn't. Where is the extra money going? Is the game 100 hours longer? Are the voice actors actual famous movie stars? Are the graphics so close to real life that we won't be able to differentiate? If not, then an extra cost will be difficult to justify... Actually, with an increase in digital distribution, I'd expect to see costs drop. Even if you're downloading a new title for $50, that's still cheaper than gamers have grown accustomed to over the last few years. We will definitely see the low end of game prices go up, though... I can see games on Amazon (used) for $10-15, but digital distro will erase all of that, with no physical copies for gamers to unload. Prices are unlikely to dip below 20 bucks on a digital marketplace, without independant sellers trying to undercut one another. Thankfully, wiiU will be disc-based. Rumors abound regarding the next Xbox lacking an optical drive, which would actually make selling games for $60 seem highly unreasonable. I fully expect game prices to basically return to the standard rates, with the high and low ends meeting in the middle.

I would've preferred a more flexible pricing system as opposed to the standard $60 for ever A, AA and AAA title available.

this is stupid. Then by this logic the original crysis should've cost 200$. You can implement next gen effects, high res textures and tesselations with very little investment !

Nobody said gaming was a cheap hobby.

That already cost $70. It's called Day One DLC.

Yeah it sucks.
Luckily being more into PC gaming in the coming years I'll save tons of money with game distributions like Steam, Gamer Gate, Direct 2 Drive (Game Fly), GOG, etc.
(Steam deals FTW!)
Honestly the only things that will make me keep playing consoles are the exclusives and the occasional game that I can't get on PC.
Not to mention all of the emulators I can run with every console on PC with all of the bells & whistles.
(I can always plug in a controller and play.)
Moving to PC will be the smartest thing a gamer can do as the years go on.

Games are already costing over 60 dollars. There at about 80+. Thanks to DLC.

It's already $70 in Canada. Then there's DLC. F*ck this sh*t.

if game prices go up...

It just makes me love Gamefly even more. However, publishers can learn a thing or two from the app market. I mean look at Angry Birds, only cost a few bucks and they've made boat loads.

Lower prices = more buyers

Gaming to Entertainment is like Golf to Other sports. Extremely fun but extremely expensive to play.

i do gamefly so i guess there monthy price might go up a dollar or two no biggie to me!

N64 games were mostly 69.99 in Canada.

Just wait till they charge 70 bucks a game then another 30 bucks to for an annual online MP pass.

publishers should follow a model, if you spend more, you should charge more, but if games like uncharted 3, gears 3, and metal gear solid 4 are selling for $60, games like hanna montana and babyz dance should be selling for $30. so that is, you spend more, you charge more, you spend less you charge less. this one price fits all thing isnt the way to go.

You know a little patience and restraint go a long way, do you really need the game the day it launches? Wait a few weeks and get a it cheaper on Amazon because they ALWAYS drop the price of a new game by $20 within the first two weeks.

Human beings need to learn the words restraint and patience unless you can and don't mind paying full price.

Looking at day one DLC, the price is well over seventy for many games now.

Sixty dollars is still a lot to pay, if a game made like Skyrim is seventy... fine. They work on DLC after the game. I am still waiting for consoles to deliver more in between stuff, thirty or forty dollar games. I think the days of anything that isn't AAA or indie are fading.

this article is stupid. games during the ps1 n64 era some costed $60. no the next gen games are still going to cost $60. who the hell approves this article anyway?

I haven't paid $60 for a game in years. They always go on sale within a month or two.
.
$39.99 is the most I pay for games these days.
.
Games ship unfinished & need patches anyway, so I wait one month the game gets a couple patches and is $20 dollars cheaper.

Not to mention I felt sorry for anyone who owned a Neo-Geo. The games were arcade perfect, but they COST $200 bucks, lol.

Well I can say this in the PS2 era games were $59.99 (Newly Released) not including tax, I still have the sticker on some of them that say that. PS3 brand new for the most part I've bought games day one at $59.99-$64.99. To tell you truth I think Sony as well as other companies know that $70 games are at that "unreasonable mark"

I dont think that will happen.. They will keep it $60 but they will make tons of on-disk DLC and make us pay for it (unfortunely)

Idk. I might be persuaded to buy a game for $70 if it was infamous 3. (open, dynamic world, shared user made content , etc. Something actually worth such an outrageous price)

Good thing I rarely buy new video games. Bring forth the sales, baby!

Games have always been $89-99 here in Australia

I doubt they will get to $70, all the game companies are probably gonna make their next consoles easy to develop for and that should keep the cost down.

Honestly 60 dollars was justified early on in this generation, but it never went away since people happily payed the price. Development costs went down, and yet the prices are still high....

60 dollars is already pushing it, you push it higher and used games become even more enticing. You get rid of used games, well watch how fast your sales slide downhill and how fast that price goes back down to 60. Hopefully if that happens people won't be happy at 60 anymore either, and it drops to 55 or even 50 again.

Want to talk about how high prices are? Then why do companies constantly report how well their games are selling? Didn't COD just break records? Make good games and not 4 hour Resident Evil's and your golden.

Snes/mega drive games were more or less at the same price back then,its funny really because although the graphics weren't 'next gen' the games lasted twice as long and the gameplay was certainly their.This gen its a case of (by the way I'm not tarnishing every game here)it feels like your getting your in between average of 5-8 hours campaign mode and a half baked multiplayer excluding your call of dutys,battlefields etc sometimes it feels like eyecandy over gameplay to me.So if they put the prices up on next gen games we want more bang for our buck oh and tone down the pay for dlc which is already on the disc doubt that will happen tho :/

That would be nice. That's $40 US cheaper than what we are forced to pay in Australia, and the same price as 3DS games.

Don't believe me? Here's the largest game retailer in Australia (owned by Gamestop): http://www.ebgames.com.au/

Anyone who would pay $70 for a new game is a goddamn fool. If the consumer doesn't fall for it, they have to reduce the price, or face diminishing profits.

This is the result of gamers congratulating graphics more than gameplay. So now, cause everyone wants high end graphics you're gonna get high end price tags. I hate to say it like this, i'm not trying to say everyone is stupid. Its that if people don't speak up for shit on sites and forums. We ain't gonna have a sony or nintendo anymore cause everyone is hating on them so much. Look at how DLC and Digital Only games is pissing off gamers. I was telling people it was a problem 3 years ago. Now people are realizing it the closer we get to a newer console generation.

And they want to stamp out piracy...riiighhhttt

Why I don't care:

Because I will either buy it used or pirate it.

My PC games range from 15 to 55 euro. Never higher. :)

You Americans are lucky. Games are literally twice the price here in Australia...

Because someone throw this gossip to observe the people reactions and if it works well prepare your wallet. That's how it works even if it will be 65$ to make you feel that you won over 70$ price. At the end of the day they win.

Playing the devil's advocate here, but gaming is an expensive hobby. There are more expensive hobbies to have, but having a top of the line console with a stack of games next to it is expensive.

That being said, you guys sound like a bunch of old people complaining how much bread and milk costs at the grocery stores, or how much fuel used to cost. You could feed your family at McDonald's for less than $10 - do you see a pattern here?

In games, the cost of production has gone up, whether it's due to the cost of tools used to make the games or the cost of the manpower to make those games. The cost of living is getting higher, which affects the entire market, not just one or two areas of it.

I am however wary of how DLC will affect gaming's future and I do see developers loading in a bunch of it with future games. So in the end, gaming might end up costing more than $70 a pop.

Increasing the price will only increase piracy and the amount of people that use Gamefly or only buy used games.

I rent most of my games for PS3 these days, I do buy the odd few i'm a fan of though; actually the last game I bought for full retail price was dark souls. Games are just so expensive these days especially on a good gaming month that it's just too expensive for a lot of people.

60$ games are a rip-off already
At least last gen and before....was better because games were finished/less glitch-fest and not cut... to be charged later or unlocked (Crapcom and their 20$ incoming STreet fighter X Tekken)

If video games on next generation consoles going up to 70$ then theirs NO WAY in buying next gen. I already having a hard time trying not to spend 60$ on a game.

Every time the next gen hits we get told the same thing. Games cost more to make blah blah blah it will cost more for the games blah blah blah.

no they wont they will cost exactly the same as they do now, maybe the big franchises like fifa and call of duty will try and rob a few extra quid out of the sheeple who cant miss their yearly updates but everything else will remain as is because there is only so much people will pay to be entertained.

I have a news flash....games are already $70 plus, I have been gaming since the Atari and this generation is the worst. The waters were tested last gen mainly on the xbox, $4 for a new golf course or two, $6 for a few new halo maps etc, just to see if it could be done. Problem was, at first you got a full game and the add-on's were just that, prolonging your gaming enjoyment and interest further. NOW it completely out of control... DLC on the disc that you have to pay for to unlock, have to pay to get the "Real" or "Complete" ending to a game , $15 yes 1/4 the price of a "full" retail game to get a few maps (Thanks Activision, you whores) paying to dress up a chararcter, really? $2 per songs for crap that should be on there already (thanks Apple you whores) Its INSANE....the next step is episodic games.....you'll be paying $15 a chapter to play a single player game....its already starting. Game publishers own greed is cutting their own throat, sooner than later more people will stop buying that "other" game they wanted or cut out the impulse buy to check out something else they may be interested in, and more publishers are going to go belly up, then we are only going to see rehashes of the same formula games that made money so new ideas will never see light of day and then we all lose.....

Try buying a game outside of America. You'll realise how well off you are. Here in the UK, our games already cost $70/£45. I should be happy with this though. Other countries charge even more than that.

What a STUPID article I just bought Deus EX HR for $7.49.....
$7.49 FREAKING DOLLARS!!!!! When are these 70 dollar game suppose to arrive 3000?

This is an easy one, you just wait till the price goes down, Time is kind to the patient. Everything has a market value attached to it, If you are willing to pay 70, 80 or even 100.00 for a game then the publishers will gladly oblige your stupidity. If you show them that you aren't willing to pay, they will have to lower prices to keep in line with market expectations or risk very poor initial sales.

The lesson here is don't let the publishers treat you like stupid, endless bags of money.

ummm Day 1 releases this gen $60
1-2 weeks after release $39.99
1 month after $29.99
I dont see why anybody would get a game day 1 anymore. I always wait for the price drop and grab it at frys or target. They could charge $100 a game next gen and it wont make a difference to me as I will wait for price drop lol

Game content is getting to be less so the price should be less too!!!! Simple!!!!

SNES and Mega Drive games were more expensive new than this gen!!!

In Russia games costs 88$ already.

I will wait and see until the companies announce pricing before I have a reaction.

IF it happens...

- I will buy fewer new games. I can barely shell out 60+ bucks for X amount of titles over time. 10 more a pop simply means less new sales.
- I will buy fewer "risk" games, aka the ones that aren't estabhlished companies and/or franchises. I may miss out on some great "under the radar" experiences, but 70.00 gambles are a big risk (as if 60.00 ones aren't enough)

Hopefully they don't hike it again (it was 50.00 for PS2/Xbox, 60.00 for PS3/360, and allegedly 70.00 for the upcoming gen) but we don't have power over it.

I wish at least a FEW companies would focus less on UBER HD graphics, massive worlds, etc and maybe scale back development costs.

Is it impossible to make a decent looking game which is focused on good gameplay, vice a massive oversized world with 2 million real life scaled cities that make the costs to make sky rocket?

Once of the reasons I like the XBLA, smaller scale, smaller price, still great fun (Bastion, Alan Wake AN, Trenched/Iron Eagle, etc)

As David Jaffe said.......Games cost to much money.

He said games should cost between $40-$50. Heck he also said you should rent games your not sure of.

We all know how publishers feel about used games & renting.

It's not up to the developers tho. It's the publishers that mark the prices.

After all they are the boss & fund the games.

I already only buy like 3 games a year. Guess I will be buying even less.

...And the game industry wonders why it's losing money...

both my 360 and ps3 broke ylod and rrod 3x whatever the price i just hope next gen is going to be more reliable or else im quitting console gaming for good and sticking with pc and handheld

yeah bring the price up and chop the game up more and more each damn time a new game comes out... i can see it now 70 bucks a game then another 30 for DLC that should of been in a 70 $ game to begin with... 12-12-12 DREAMCAST im waitin

I remember a time when games were in the 30-40$ price range.
If they go up to 70$+ they can go screw themselves period. It would be one thing if the wages scaled with the cost of living these days, but they dont.

Everything goes up while my damn paycheck has stayed the same. Its bad enough i work two jobs just to get by and im not going to bust my ass even more just so i can afford entertainment, they can seriously go f*&ck themselves.

PS1 games were $40 new when I was a kid. PS2 were $50 and PS3 is $60. Next gen will most likely be $70 and no way am I paying that for a game.

I would not mind playing $70 for a game if they cut back on the DLC nonsense. Just charge everyone $70 and sale us complete games. If they want to make a little extra with DLC do it ONLY as expansion DLC, because I don't mind DLC that comes out a couple of months later and expands on the story, but I do mind DLC that makes you feel like it was pulled from the main story so it could be sold separately.

Go on Amazon right now and look at any AAA game that just came out recently and then tell me who's really paying too much for a game. Even if we had to pay $70 for a game that just came out no one is paying full retail price for very long. You want the latest and great right now then you gotta pay top dollar nothing has changed.

Believe me.. Next Gen games will cost more than 80+ $ !

games will only cost what were willing to pay so if they dont sell at 70 they will have to drop it or more and more people will just ignore launch days and wait for price drops thats what I find myself doing more and more.

I used to buy all my games new, Till i graduated highschool now i only buy 2 or 3 games new now a year i just wait for the buy 2 get 1 free deals

It truly sucks but its not unjustified.

With the way the economy is and add to that the exponential higher cost of next gen development, I think you still get off easy for only having to pay $70.

the only thing I can say to this, is that it would be an extremely bad choice for publisher to raise the price, they would end up loosing in the end.
where the consumer will move from AAA games to mobile games that cost a fraction of the price asked for a console game, and thus slowly dragging console gaming down to extinction.

the only way forward would be to tightening anti piracy system and lowering exponentially the price, to something everyone can afford, its a win win strategy.

Thats fine the price can go up, I'll still buy mine preowned (holds edge card.) and I have read people flamming Gamestop but im going to be honest, a good 75% of the games this gen were not worth their 62.00 dollers (not including DLC cost.)So I will continue to buy preowned until the games are worth their cost.

70 bucks is nothing. I used to pay for Neo Geo games!

honestly only 20-30% of games should even cost $60. Most games should charge $40. It's just every company wants to tout their big games as 'AAA' and if they cost less than $60 they're afraid people will think so - which isn't true. Sports games are a shame coming out every year at $60, $20-$30 is what we should pay considering the amount of work/effort they put into the updates.

CHeap gaming will always be around. You can bank on that. I will NEVER pay 70 bucks a game. I will wait for the price to come down.

You can say all you want that, "Well I guess companies will stop making games then." But they wont. If the consumer puts their foot down then we get what we want. Period.

End of Line.

My face when I buy game off steam for 5-7$ While console fags still buy em 60$ a peice.

We had this before the last gen, same arguments and they still charged the same as before.

This article provides no actual fact or any hint of anything that has been said or hinted at by publishers or retailers to justify or show that they are thinking of a $70 price tag for future games.

This article is an opinion piece, fair enough. However the opinion is based solely on the fact that games used to be cheaper, then they increased them so they now MUST increase them yet again? No, they must not.

They may release to around £50 but they will quickly come down in price to around the same price points we have for games today (£40).
Publishers and retailers alike want to sell their games and even though they can make more money from less people, they can make EVEN more money that if they find the price point that means the price is accessible to more people's gaming budgets.

i have no problem paying 70 bucks for a game as long as they are the quality of that CG demo thing that the heavy rain guys made but im also going to buy less games if this happens.

bitch please in my country current gen games are 80$

PC still has most games at $40-50 while new. XD

You can come up with as many excuses as you like. But the fact of the matter is, people will buy what they want if they can afford it. And with everything increasing except income, how long do you think they'll get away with that before consumers finally say "no, I can't afford that, and it's not worth that much."

This is why the game companies want to slay the dragon that is used game sales. After all, if you have no alternatives, what choice do you have left? Gimmie your money.

To add, going to an all digital format would just make this easier to do.

Should digital only games be cheaper then box games? Since you know, there's no box or manufacturing required. Some developers have games launch at $50 but others who launch at $60 are slightly annoying.

there are many games that launched this gen at 69.99 if you buy it they will sell at that price... supply and demand ppl basic economics...

The Wii U games will be $50, sorry for you guys. Lol.

I think that since the world population is increasing at an insane rate that they don't mind keeping the price at 60, plus the whole in-disc dlc bullcrap will make more than enough for a triple A title..

Helix will be expensive but it's still a day one for me.

Oh, my days...
So Nadella meets with the US president multiple times to ensure AI regulations are minimal if any at all, donates to the inauguration and ballroom, and his boy not only won't regulate AI as farmers lose land and billionaires/corporations buy up farmland to build data centers...but because he's insane and compromised, he starts a war on behalf of a rogue colonial zionist state and [further] destabilizes the Middle East, restricting component access and helium supply.

Now the head of Xbox is saying the hardware pricing "could impact" next generation hardware pricing? Asha,...your boss at a minimum played a direct role in this. What are we even talking about?

Yea because a $3 trillion company can’t absorb the majority of the cost to keep the product lower for consumers.

Expensive… oh no, here comes another flop.

Could? Strange how prices rise for virtually everything we buy, yet when things settle down, prices don't come down. This has been happening in the UK probably before I was born. With that, how much is a next gen console going to cost? Look at the price of the PlayStation 5 Pro, which has been a flop for Sony. On that note, we don't need the next consoles for another 5 years.

I guarantee if people just stopped buying this kinda stuff all together. This would all be sorted within 2 weeks and everything would be back to normal.

We seen the exact same thing through the COVID period. Companies just jumped on the bandwagon realising that they can get away with charging far more under false pretences and fear mongering.

Consumers now have this fear of "you know what, I only live once. I'm going to spend all this money I earned through my hard work" Or "I only live once I'm going to take a loan out and enjoy my time here".

Silicone Valley spends literally billions of dollars researching how much they can push society to the limits to increase spending. You can research it yourself. There's published written documentation about it. Have a look for yourself into their group research into subscription programs to see how evil they are and why it's such a giant focus of current civilization. Its the very essence of corporate capitalism.

Just delay all new consoles. I could easily go another 5 years with my base PS5.

could? it's already affecting current gen pricing.

It is greed. Apple are selling at the same price, while Microsoft Surface increases 500$ per unit. Karma will tell.