You highlight something that I've been concerned with for years now, which is that DLC is no longer extra goodies to enhance game.  DLC is now being used as almost compulsory purchase in order to milk more money from the consumer.  If you pay $60 for a game, then you should be able to experience 100% of the game's story.  If you pay $60 for a game and only get to experience 85-90% of a game and have to pay an extra $7-$14 on top of that, then that's just outrageous. 

Prices will rise, some devs will go bankrupt and others will stabilize themselves later when better ad cheaper tools get released. It's stil not good tough.

Street Fighter X Tekken didn't even give gamers 85-90% for $60.

Very true.

But the companies that are doing this policy are putting themselves at a risky position as players will start to think twice before buying their next game. Something that's already happening with Capcom and SFxT.

I still dont get it.... I mean crysis 2 had a bazillion polygon count yet they had a $10 cheaper price that the 360 and ps3 versions.

Let me clarify it for you, first I am thinking your are speaking about the PC version of the game.

The number of polygons in all 3 versions is the same so the game is a development for this generation and the graphics are not as good as a next generation machine. The update added even more polygons, but it did it automatically so most of them are wasted in plain objects and invisible layers so those were wasted, you need to hire many artist to actually take advantage of a great number of polygons and more people working on a proyect means more expensive to produce.

Second the PC version is 10 dollars cheaper because that edition does not pay royalties to the console creators, for every copy of the game a third party publishes they have to pay an average of 8 dollars to the console manufacturer. That does not happen in the case of the PC, that is the reason those games are usually 10 dollars cheaper.

In the future if the console games will increase 10 dollars the PC games will also as the cost of creating the game will raise for all, but the PC version will still be 10 dollars cheaper because they don't pay the royalty fees.

Ahh. Clearly understood. thanks.

Honestly, the solution(s) should be rather simple.

1) Stop making every game in your library a AAA product. The next consoles will focus on on-line distribution more than ever, allowing for more sales of indie-type products with budgets to match. Even major publishers need to look at balancing their portfolios better between the $30 million dollar mega projects and the $1-5 million dollar experimental projects.

2) Use unified engine development across major titles. Its amazing that a company can spend tens of millions of dollars creating a game world, then fail to re-use few assets in any other titles. I know that some of the major companies have their own engines, but it needs to be more extensive. Once they make Grand Theft Auto V, whats stopping them from releasing 2-3 more titles at $15-20 each that re-use a lot of the assets, but are different games overall? (e.g. a racing game, or heck, a quasi-RPG). Look at what Bethesda does with their library - they used the same engine for Oblivion, FO3, and FO:NV with small modifications, and sold well north of 10 million units using the same engine across the games.

Developers and publishers need to see the writing on the wall and realize that the arms race will only lead to more bankruptcies, and look more towards the TV/Movie model of creating a wide range of products for the user base, rather than assume every game must be AAA.

The industry as a whole will likely be employing more people anyway.

I agree with you but

1) Publishers have the wrong idea that they need AAA games to earn money. To clarify, an Indie developer can launch a game for 20 $ and still gain 5 $ per game. Enough for them to subsist. But publishers need bigger margins (10-15 $) so they need to launch their games at a higher price. But we, the consumers, expect more of a game of a higher priced game and that forces the publisher to launch bigger games that cost more to develop and thus makes them even more pricier. And that's what leads to AAA games.

2) Completely agree. And using your GTA example, Rockstar could use most of the assets of the next GTA V to launch a couple of expansions like Episodes of Liberty City or even develop a new Midnight Club within the city of Los Santos.