DVDs make their money at the box office.  So when a movie comes to DVD, the DVD purchase supplement the box office sells.  For CDs the artish actually do not make their money off of CD sells, its the label and publisher.  Instead Artist make their money from concerts. 

The difference with Vidoe games is they only make their money from retail.  Most games have to make their money in 2 months before the 2nd hand market starts to erode sales.  Its one of the reason for DLC as its a means to supplement the retail market and 2nd hand sales.  Even then, consumers consider DLC as developers/publishers being greedy.  It seems that content game owners cannot do anything that require the consumer to actually pay money without appearing to be greedy.  

There is definitely management issues that developers and publishers can do to reduce cost but also there is public perception by consumers that the only thing that matters is what they want.  What is good for the consumer is not good for everyone.

Actually you can blame the Retail chains why you see prices for PSN and 360 games at such a high level.  I remember early when MS and Sony started to sell games online and the retail stores complained that digital copies should be priced the same to not be a direct competition.  Since getting shelf space is a big issue for publishers, they do not want to piss off those retail agreements.

Reason why this is not an issue with PC games is because there basically isn't any retail space anymore.  Valve and publishers do not have to worry about retail agreements and keeping the piece so thats one reason you see better deals for PC games instead of Console.

This is one reason why some people believe once we go to all digital for console games, there will be no need to rely on 2nd hand games because Sony, MS and publishers will not have to rely on retail agreements and can have better control to set their prices.

I dont buy it, because the digital prices are NOT priced the same, they are way more expensive than retail. People would complain less if they actually did match the prices. Are people even going on these stores or are they all just speculating. 

PC gaming, wrong. There being no retail has little to do with retail space and mostly to do, with there being more than ONE digital distributor online, which means, competition which means prices go down because of it. That probably wont happen on PSN XBL because those have no competition.

Ill agree with you on the last part, but if you think that will be good for consumers you might be in for a rude awakening. They wont even match the retail prices NOW, what makes anyone think they will when they have pretty much a free rein monopoly on the game pricing?

I am simply going by actions of these companies and what i see going on now. The digital games are grossly overpriced and if people think we go all digital on consoles and the companies will price them more fairly out of the goodness of their hearts, then people havent learned anything. We are talking about companies that charge for online play, lock game content behind DLC and all kinds of other crap. Im sorry but i have little faith in them.

Why wouldn't publisher lower prices in order to sell more?  There doesn't have to be competition for them to do that, just enough people who don't buy the game at the price they're asking.  If COD is still selling at $60, that's because people are still paying for it.

As for closed systems, there is competition.  It's called don't buy the system and do something else.  Apple will never let google play on it's devices, why should MS or Sony let anyone else on their platform?  You know you are buying a closed system.  If you don't like it just don't buy it.

Because they havent been doing that. Look at the games on PSN/XBL vs what you can find in the store, new. If there not doing it now, why would they do it in the future when they will have much less incentive to do so. Im talking digital here.

Last paragraph makes no sense, you didn counter anything, just said dont buy the system,which i wont. Never even said that they should let anyone else on their platform, dont know where you are pulling that from.

They are still in competition with disc titles though.

Here is an article that talks about how retail chains actually do influence MS and Sony digital store.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps3-xbox-720-will-fail-if-they-let-retailers-dictate-game-pricing

Here is anothe link on how Retailer are using their clout to make publishers take out Steam services in their games

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/480283/the-geforce-lounge/retail-threatens-to-ban-steam/

There are a lot more stuff you can pull up but the main thing is that retailers dictate to Sony, MS and Publishers on digital prices as they can leverage their clout to not stock a game.  The reason why digital games on PSN and 360 are so much higher is because those companies do not want their service to compete with retail and piss them off.

Now that digital is becoming more prevalent, retail chains are losing their muscle and publishers have a bigger say on deals and prices which you are starting to see within PSN and 360 sales.  Once the next gen starts, retail chains will have even less control and things should open up nicely for console games.

The thing is, EB here in Australia also get a lot more in new game profit than elsewhere - ever notice how much various retailers are able to discount a game during their sales events? It's because their margins are HUGE, and so too is the markup being done by the local distributors.

Any publisher who complains about used game sales or piracy (or any retailer that complains about piracy) in Australia, but continues to charge the outrageous prices in Australia, will get no sympathy from me.

EB here in Australia also get a lot more in new game profit than elsewhere

Why do they then have better rewards for the second hand games? Both trade-ins and sales. Wouldn't they want to reward new game buyers? They earn less from new games, why not try to sell as much as possible?

Any publisher who complains about used game sales or piracy (or any retailer that complains about piracy) in Australia, but continues to charge the outrageous prices in Australia, will get no sympathy from me.

You shall hear or read no disagreement from me!   Where do you buy your games from? Online stores? eBay? JB hifi? I've picked up many new games of late for around $60! I got Mass Effect 2 a few weeks after it came out for $35 online. I'd post the site but they sell gaming merchandise like the site vgc is often attached to. So PM me if you're interested.

It's not as much a problem for the movie industry because they have several advantages that the videogame industry doesn't.  The first being the ability of big budget movies to launch at theaters and have several months of no "used sales".  Maybe if AAA videogames has a period of 3 months where you could only buy it digitally without the ability to resell the game then that would be the equivalent but you'd probably get a lot of angry gamers as a result.

Another is the cost of entry which is still an issue for consoles at the moment.  I mean as of right now what do you think would happen to 3D movies if you had to buy a pair of special 3D glasses for $200 and bring them with you whenever you wanted to watch a 3D movie at the theater?  Of course one could argue you need to buy a TV to watch content at home but the TV is also made to watch tv shows as well as movies which is one thing people are complaining about with Xbox One, that it's being made to do more than one thing yet they have no issue with a TV being able to do more than just play movies.

As for the music industry they have concerts and get residuals on top of digital and cd sales.  If they had none of that and had to rely solely on cd sales you'd see a price increase and them trying to do something to clamp down on used sales.

As for expanding their sales with paraphernalia that's basically what they're doing with special editions, DLC, season passes, etc, yet you get a lot of complaining from some vocal gamers for even those and it's obvious from the amount of studios that have closed this generation that it isn't enough.  Until we don't need to buy consoles upfront and are able to get everything digitally there will be a need for what is now happening especially since the cost of games is likely to go up and there's even more competition for gamers than last generation.