bread and milk also rise their prices every gen :)

The companies will charge the maximum the market will bear.
Hence why in Australia it's not unusual to have a new console game that is $100 or more. (And our dollar is worth more than the USD.)
It's due to the fact people can afford to pay that amount as the Minimum wage is twice that of the USD.

However, if you look at the trend, it's been more than just a $10 increase this generation, you need to take into account; the DLC, Limited/Special editions, paying for unlocks, the works. It's going to work out to be more than just the $10 increase that average gamers have been spending. - For example to get all the release-day Mass Effect 3 stuff was some insane amount around the $800 mark.

Companies could probably get away without a price increase next generation, but being companies... They are always trying to increase profits, regardless of the consumer; and they will make up any excuse to get away with it.
Activision for instance have been sitting on their assess with the same game engine pretty much this entire generation which should mean that productions costs should be very low for them as production time is very short as they have allot of experience with the engine, yet they release some of the most expensive games. (Aka. Call of Duty.)

This is why I usually buy my games from overseas and on Steam these days, I get around the "Australian tax" by getting the game at a fraction of the price. - And with our dollar so strong it's even more attractive.
Game companies hate it though, just like the second hand market because they don't get as much/no money.

The only exception to this is if I *must* have the game on release day and I know that the companies will support the game for years to come. Aka. Like the original StarCraft, which still receives patches almost 15 years after it's release, that's worth paying the full price for in my opinion.

Basically what I'm saying is, if a game company can make up an excuse and get away with charging the consumer more, you bet they are going to. They only care about taking your money, it's not like they will send you cake or flowers for purchasing their product.

My point lies here... software is already expenisve enough at 60$ Game companies won't want to raise it even more, if they did that would practically be a suicide to their company and console. People don't want to pay upwards of 50$ for just software, they already raised the price to 60$ AKA pushing it.

I never said that game companies would raise the price of games above $60 (I said they won't, in fact); or is your post's point saying that you believe Nintendo won't raise their game prices to $60?

I'll say that I certainly hope they remain $50, but they're no stranger to $60 games, during N64 days due to the cartridge format.  With all of the big HD games being $60 today, it's not inconceivable that Nintendo could do the same.  Surely not all of their games would increase, but top tier HD games like Zelda WiiU are simply going to cost them more/take more resources to make than Wii games, and it wouldn't surprise me to see a new Zelda WiiU game retailing for $60 just like the new Halo, Gears, or Uncharted would.

i don't like spending £40 on a game now (unless i really want it) but no.. i don't expect it to go up.

gaming is so much cheaper now that it ever has been so no I think it wont be.

Nah I'm expecting $400 consoles and $60-70 games as usual.

Used games may be a thing of the past next gen though, meaning you have to pay full new price for games every time, which will suck for the gamer on a budget. It'll probably mean I only buy a couple games a year.

depends on how easy consoles are to dev. for. i've been saying the cost would go up about $20 bucks for the past 2 yr.'s, but if consoles are more like PC's as has been said, then i doubt cost be that big a deal.

i just hope for a more variable approach. some games are totally worth $100. most aren't worth $60. price games what they are worth not just a standard $60. games like halo/uncharted costing the same as lollipop chainsaw is pretty stupid imo.

It's already an expensive hobby. It better not get worse than this...