Mass Effect 3 Demo Shows the Absurdity of Xbox Live Gold - 1UP

[Fumanchu]

TheKoreanGuy said:

Fumanchu said:

Sony was actually losing money selling the PS3 at $600. 

I think it's almost entirely the used game market as to the reason why multiplayer is 'tacked on' to most games.  Developers either pay for the support fees in multiplayer (no idea of costs) or face a large percentage of owners trading their games in upon completion and lose sales. 

The game prices haven't really gone up in over two decades now, but the budgets and support costs have dramatically. 

Yeah, the PS3's launch was not planned very well. Sony incorrectly thought the market would eat up anything they put out and thought the technology in it would be a good justification. I'm sure Sony learned their lesson with that one. That's why the Vita isn't merely an upgraded PSP.

Used games are also a huge but different issue. I can see why it can hurt sales. But isn't this the case with every used market? Unless there was a ban on selling your own goods, I can't see how these companies can stop that without getting some people angry. Used games are helpful since I can't find a lot of old games on sale for new. I heard the Next Xbox is going to stop used games somehow. We'll see how that turns out.

Actually game prices did go up. It used to be $50 but Microsoft upped the price to $60 saying it helps support development costs. It's only $10 more but just that contributes a lot since every person that buys the game is spending $10 more.

That's right sorry - I forgot there was an increase in the US.

In Australia the prices have remained the same anyway. 

I'm not getting into the used games debate, but I believe that's why a lot of the games are offering multiplayer.