| Soundwave said: I mean c'mon, I get that most gamers don't understand the business very well, but not understanding that say a 40% of a profit margin (assuming a $40 net take on each retail copy, which probably is overstated on my part to begin with) is crazy. That would be something significant for any business be it a pizza parlour, a hair salon, a car rental service etc, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, a car company, etc. etc. etc. etc. 30-40% of your margin in not small potatoes. Why do people think video games should operate on a completely different set of rules. |
It's a cost that has always existed with cart-based devices. And developers/publishers always did fine and have consistently posted profit and sales records.
| Soundwave said: Cartridges always suck when they get too expensive. |
Carts have their strengths and weaknesses.
They are:
* More durable. - Especially important if you have children.
* Can save data internally allowing you to bring your save game with you to other devices.
* Allows you to swap and share games seamlessly.
But obviously cost is an issue, but we are paying higher prices now anyway, so who cares? It's actually not our problem.
| Soundwave said: It happened in the 80s (so much so that Nintendo wanted to ditch them entirely for the Disk Drive), it happened in the 90s (cost Nintendo their entire leadership of the traditional home console market and they've never really regained that part of it), and with Switch 2 requiring these higher speed carts, at $16 a pop that's simply an fairly high cost. This was always going to be a problem too as the Switch 2 can run modern gen games, but a lot of these modern games are well over 64GB even these days. The pricing was always going to become a problem unless Nintendo scaled their ambitions down, and thankfully they haven't because that would suck. |
You forget game costs have increased by $10.
Console costs have also risen in cost.
Console manufacturers/developers/publishers have also monetized their DLC, sprinkled in Micro-transactions, increased the price of accessories and other paraphernalia, game passes and various subscriptions (Online networks etc'), added in advertising and more.
So cry me a river on that front...
As far as I am concerned, $16 is justifiable from a consumers perspective.
| Soundwave said: Some devs, particularly with lower budget games and games that have already broke even into profitability (so likely older ports) may opt to eat the cost of the cartridge by passing it on through the price of the game, but rationally you can't expect every developer to do so. Like Star Wars Outlaws, they're probably still trying to pay off the monstrous development budget for that game, they probably have not broken even ($200-$300 million dollar budget), they may never break even. You really think they ought to just eat $16 a copy ... they need that margin. |
We are already paying a higher price.
But I am perfectly happy to pay an even higher price if I get the full game on the cart.
Otherwise, they miss out on my money entirely, how is that going to assist with them recovering their budget? It's not.
They could have also done a dual-release, one with the entire physical game on cart at a higher price, one without. Such a big issue, with such a simple solution, who would have thought?
Again, their failure to budget and plan properly doesn't constitute an emergency on my end, I'm a consumer and I will buy what I want to buy... And as it stands, that is physical media... And many other gamers feel the same way.
It's one of the tick boxes that made Cyberpunk such a roaring success on Switch 2, to the point where they had actually sold out all their carts here...
| Soundwave said: Again game developers are in the game business, not the collectibles and archiving and keepsake business. The fact that a little collecting enclave emerged in the industry doesn't mean game developers ever signed up for that business model to begin with. |
The thing about Nintendo's platforms is that there is a large cult following who only buy Physical media, 75% of Cyberpunks sales were physical on Switch 2.
https://nintendowire.com/news/2025/08/29/cd-projekt-red-reveals-75-of-cyberpunk-2077-switch-2-sales-were-physical/
On the original Switch the breakdown was like 50/50 Physical/Digital ratio... That's a big market to alienate and lose sales on.
https://famiboards.com/threads/switch-packaged-games%E2%80%99-physical-to-digital-sales-ratio-was-2-1-in-fy24.11617/
| Soundwave said: Again game developers are in the game business, not the collectibles and archiving and keepsake business. The fact that a little collecting enclave emerged in the industry doesn't mean game developers ever signed up for that business model to begin with. |
Collectors are a big market.
Limited Run Games has built it's entire business model on it.
Steam is full of a collectors, the Median of unplayed games in peoples Steam Library is at 51.5%, which is massive considering the 132+ million active monthly users.
https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/how-many-pc-games-get-bought-but
Retro game cart collecting is currently around a 12~ billion dollar market.
https://gam3s.gg/news/exploring-142-billion-gaming-collectibles-market/
Game collectors aren't a demographic that should be ignored, maybe if Ubisoft recognized that with StarWars Outlaws, they might have had better success... But delaying the launch on PC/Steam, then not releasing the game properly on Physical media didn't do them any favours. (Plus it's Ubisoft. So meh.)
| Soundwave said: The simple solution is to just have Collector's Editions limited print runs of cartridges for games, with the understanding that 64GB won't hold every game's entire game data even, but for people who really must, must, have it ... fine. Let them pay whatever the digital copy/GKC copy's cost is + $16, so in the range of $80-$96 for certain games. You want it, then pay for it, nothing outrageous about that at all. If I want a game controller with $20 additional hardware cost in features, I should expect to pay $20 more than a controller that doesn't have those features, that has nothing to do with "manufacturer greed!!!!". |
I would not be against this as an option.
But if they are going to lump full-game cart copies as a higher price tier, then Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and the entire gaming industry need to lower their digital prices back down to $60 USD.
Otherwise it's stupid greed.
| HoloDust said: I'm not sure they can allow themselves anymore to be generation late. Also, I'm fully expecting PS6P to have UDNA, like PS6, so that tech will probably be what will power PC handhelds as well. |
AMD doesn't really have competition in that marketspace...
Intel Decelerator graphics are the only alternative since all other manufacturers exited the market, including nVidia.
Part of that was Intel and AMD bringing their Northbridge on-die, reducing the need for 3rd party alternatives.
I think the lockstep of AMD's integrated graphics being 6-12 months behind their desktop variants will continue, AMD developers for the PC Discreet first, then filters that technology down to all other segments. I.E. Integrated, Consoles, Compute/Professional uses etc'.
I mean, we still see RDNA2 still being pushed around in new products... Rather than RDNA3 or RDNA3.5... And even AMD's Vega is still being sold, despite it no longer receiving reliable driver support with AMD's Ryzen 7430 for instance.
AMD has made a mess out of it's lineup, especially in the mobile space.
www.youtube.com/@Pemalite
