We will soon see. MS has control over what pricing the first party games are set at. Now I believe they will be full price at launch of course but I can see a scenario when the first party games become cheaper quicker for the digital downloads as opposed to the physical copies. Third party games MS has no control over so they will most likely rip you off regardless. They are only cheaper on PC because nobody on PC wants to pay ridiculous prices. COD is the biggest culprit. MW3 is still $50-$60 on Steam. Obviously Activision doesn't care because they sell so many copies on consoles. If people would refuse to stop snatching up certain games day 1 then we could see prices being more competitive.

i dont think so. as people said NFL 2012 is 59.99 but some sony games are going for cheap. LBP2 is 19.99 and LBP is 14.99 i guess third parties set the price of their own games

you my good sir are speaking the truth!

Why do they have better rewards for the second hand games? Simple: even if they get, say, $30 per game when sold new (that's around a 40% markup, assuming a $100 game), they still get more when selling it used (you trade the game in and get $50 back a week after purchase, they then sell it preowned for $90 - and if it's a month old, they're as likely to give you only $30, and sell it for $80). And the extra money they get for selling the new games initially is more than enough to fund their trade-in deals.

Where do I buy my games from? Typically I look for the cheapest deal at retail stores - which is usually either JB or one of the retailer trio (Big W, Kmart, Target), with Dick Smith a distant fifth. EB only gets my business when there's a big sale, or a really cheap second-hand title. Not big on online shopping, although I am aware of a few relatively cheap sites.

I know that, which is even more pathetic, there is no reason why their digital copies are sometimes 40 bucks MORE than the retail version. They sure dont act like they are competing.

im with you on the first part, you'll get no argument from their, but i check out at the bolded. No we are NOT starting to see sales on PSN and XBL, that weekly sale garbage doesnt count. MOST of the games their are still grossly overpriced. Now you say that wont be an issue when its more digital. I disagree respectfully. YOu'll just trade in one asshole for another asshole. NONE of these are benevolent companies that care about us, the only thing we have taht is even close is surprise NInty, that isnt even involved in this nonsense and even they have done some questionable crap.

The main problem that I see with your argument is that it assumes prices will always stay high for digital when all evidence shows that as something becomes dominantly digital based, it becomes cheaper and has more frequent sales.

Right now, with the 360 probably being somewhere around 70/30 or 80/20 in terms of physical/digital copies sold, the digital copies are already close to the same price as buying new copies that aren't on sale at the store. For instance, I bought Darksiders on demand about a month ago and it cost me $20, which is about what it costs new at retail (give or take $5). On top of that the 360 has been having increasingly large and better sales as the push for digital is becoming more apparent. Every few weeks there's at least one or two retail titles that go on sale for much cheaper than retail (for instance, last week, Dark Souls was only $10 on demand).

When a digital service starts out and is heavily in the minority of sales, it is more of a luxury and the publishers will charge more than retail. But over time as the amount of digital sales outweighs the amount of physical sales, those digital titles will become as cheap if not slightly cheaper than retail and there are more and more deals on those digital titles.

That is why I am fully confident that as consoles become mostly digital based, we will see decent prices, and sales a plenty.

I'm not sure about Sony but I know MS said that publishers are responsible for how much digital titles cost on Xbox Live for the Xbox One.

I do not understand that kind of reasoning.  The weekly sales have contributed to my library alot and that holiday deal stocked a few games I have been meaning to pick up for awhile.  The thing is we are seeing deals and they are increasing not decreasing.  Every adventure has to start somewhere and once things become common place you will see bigger and better deals has publishers, hardware owners and developers feel more confident that they do not need the retail market to sell their games.  From my understanding this is how steam started.  A few titles here, a decent sale there and next thing you know publishers and developers are oppening up the floodgates because they are seeing a nice return.

Give it time, a crack in a damn takes a little time before it blows the whole thing down.

YOu cant compare sales on digital versus retail there not even close. Yes there are weekly retail sales as well, but when a price drops at retail, it stays down. You cant say the same for XBL and PSN. Those prices are always higher digitally, baring a sale here or there. All we are seeing are weekly sales, which is something that has been aroudn for years on those services anyway. 

Again you are wrong about Steam, that is ONE service of many on PC networks, which is why the prices are so low. IT is open on the PC market not on PSN or XBL, i dont understand how people are not getting that. Again if there is no competition people will charge whatever they want. And looking at the pure greed of the companies, I say start saving your money if you wanna continue gaming.