zarx said:
is there any doubt that NGP games will retail for $50-60? The price of flash memory is still dropping and I just don't see retail games with 4-5 times the level of assets (textures, geometry, video etc) being smaller than PSP games bing smaller than 2GB unless they are really lacking in content, not to mention anything under a GB will be download only IMO. And your prices aren't really accurate if SONY are manufacturing their own carts (they probably will) with 16GB SD carts retailing at $50 the actual cost if you aren't paying SD card royalties and manufacturing in high quantities will probably be well under $20 for publishers (still high but dropping quite rapidly) and I don't see games that big for a couple years at least. There are some developments in flash memory on the horizon promise vastly cheaper flash memory in the coming years and massive increases in capacity. http://www.fastcompany.com/1610755/hp-memristors-semiconductors-chips-memory-science-flash-ram-physics-electronics http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9183066/Nanocrystal_conductors_using_dirt_cheap_material_promise_massive_3_D_storage http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/flash-error-correction-chip/ |
You've got to consider that the maximum cartridge size for Nintendo DS games is (currently) 1 Gigabit or 128 Megabytes; and (from my understanding) these cartridges only started to get used heavily in the past couple of years because of how expensive they're to manufacture.
It is entirely possible that technology has advanced in the past couple of years so that it is as cost effective to release games on 512MB cartridges as it was to release games on 128MB cartridges a couple of years ago; and Sony might have a higher tollerance for the manufacturing cost of games than Nintendo has, so I could see them using a 2GB cartridge out of the gate; but I doubt this would translate into 4GB cartridges for a few years (and probably not 8GB cartridges until late in the generation).
Now, the premium I'm talking about isn't what stores would charge on most titles, which could end up being anywhere from $39 to $59; the premium I'm talking about is that the occasional game that did use the largest cartridge could be $10 (or more) above the cost of the most expensive regular game price. If Sony matched Nintendo's price range, and NGP games were $40 to $50, I would expect to see 4GB NGP games selling for $60 and an 8GB or 16GB game could sell for as much as $90.
My guess on the premium charge is based on more than raw manufacturing costs, and you have to consider that retailres and publishers will both want more money as the price of a game increases to cover losses from reduced sales.
