How do you blame M$ for the pricing?  If they don't support retail, the gamers go nuts.  If they do support retail, the gamers complain about the prices.  M$ tried to go digital and the gamers said NO.  Don't blame them or Sony, blame the gaming community. 

The real values will be in the indies that don't ever go to retail.

It's NEVER been about saving us money. It's NEVER been about getting games to us at a cheaper cost. It's always been about control. Their wet dream, is to be like Steam, only at full retail prices. This way, their profit margins swell AND they get to kill off the second hand market.

Exactly. MS would love to go the route of steam- all digital. No used sales means later on as the price falls, digital sales can still keep up. Consumers responded with all their might "WE WANT DISCS FROM RETAILERS"

"If they don't support retail"? Why do retail need supporting, can they not stand on their own 2 feet? Are Walmart/Asda not making enough money? (I know Game are not but is that really because of digital retail?).

You need a balance, I blame M$ for trying to force a digital future when we just are not there yet. XB Store and PS Store all last gen were highly overpriced for games. While pretty much all high street stores would compete in prices, one lowering it by a £1 here or there and over time games get cheaper and cheaper, Amazon price matching, supermarkets doing deals etc. While XB and PS stores held fast at the RRP, which I might add is £10 more than any other shop in the entire UK would sell a game for to begin with.

Broken or not, Battlefield 4 for PS3 is currently £60 on PS Store. On a disc copy on Amazon.co.uk £27.99. This isn't keeping retailers happy, they should be competing for prices and customers. This is because digitally, PS Store doesn't have the same kind of competition as Game or Tesco do against Sainsburys and Amazon, they don't have to try and make their prices compete as there is no one to compete with in terms of digital distribution. If retailers want to survive, they need to earn it and it is not by crying at Sony or MS to fix prices so they can get decent sales, it's to adapt and change with the times, allowing more options of retail.

Yes I blame M$ for the pricing, they control the store, not Game not gamers. I blame Game for their prices, I blame Shopto.net for their prices, it's up to the individual shop if they sell a game for £40 or £47 (GTAV original price, Asda vs HMV). We have no say in that, the complaints about M$ digital future wasn't the fact it was digital, but the fact it was restrictive.

digital prices shouls be lower than retail full stop
id say -£5 off for digital and imo the pricies should fluctuate ie year old game should be knocked down to £19.99 etc

The standard digital pricing really shouldn't be the concern, it's how often they have massive sales and how large those discounts become.
Also important is how quickly the prices depreciate over time.

With that in mind, I wonder if these companies could be sued for essentially price fixing?
Forcing digital prices to be equal to retail is... Crap.

It isn't about supporting the retailers because they "want" too or because they have no digital competition, it is because they HAVE to. Both Sony and MS are reliant on retail to ship and sell consoles, in order for retailers to do that they have to see profit in it for them. both Sony and MS set a RRP, this price has to be at a level that allows retailers to make a good profit if they choose otherwise they aren't going to recommend or stock the system and corresponding games (and fair enough really they are businesses not charities). It also allows retailers to compete on price with other retailers with loss leaders or discount prices to get people into their stores.

 If the online businesses sell at below RRP then they are immediately undermining the retail chain even if only by a small amount and this new price will become the defacto RRP. I hate the pricing of games at the moment and despise the digital pricing even more but both companies are in a hard position when it comes to digital pricing and I am not sure there is a "good" way for them to price them that won't have nasty consequences for them.

Perhaps they can sell cheaper but allow the retail chains to also sell digital codes for the games at the cheaper prices too. At the moment the retail chains are essential to their business and until they can completely kill disks off and remove the realiance on retail chain it is always going to be a fine line for them to walk.

I understand the first point but I feel Sony and MS should disregard this dependency when it comes to their online digital store. Game retailers cannot just sit back and wait for the end of discs then go out of business, they need to be encouraged to adapt, if this means high street stores are just used for hardware exchange and the purchase of online codes then fair enough but that's a way off yet. They should be allowed to create digital outlets which compete directly with XB Store and PS Store.

Online businesses already do sell far below RRP, you mean digital retailers. Selling digital games at a higher price is stupid as there are less costs involved, no disc, no packaging, direct profits. They could undermine them and still keep customers happy by offering only £1 or 2 less that high street stores, the exchange of you buying digital is that it's attached to DRM meaning you can't trade in or exchange that product/licence. Many, like me would probably buy retail still but it gives people the option if they want to download it but if the right offers/deal/price comes along, I might be more willing to buy digital.

I do wonder if this need the retailers had was thought about when it came to Steam, yet in this case there are a number of PC retailers selling hardware, not dedicated to just PC games and PCs.

like xenostar said the prices on PSN are all £52-56 apart from JD4 which is £40 i think

i don't get it,if any had been £35- £40 like NFS i Probably would have bought one but i won't reward that sort of price,they are not even included on the 12 deals of christmas, games on the PS4

i think it is about time the digital stores started pricing at around £30 now for games it is ridiculous this is still going on,it is like a shop for the super rich and priviliged who don't need to care about money

not all of us consumers can get to big retail outlets/shops if you can shop online elsewhere why not on xbox/psn

basicly retarded, getting rid of a huge part within the supply chain should be beneficial for both the consumer and the company...