Fear not, this thread is not about the next price drop for the PS3, 360, or even the Wii.  It's what I find is a disturbing trend among publishers these days.  Publishers aren't dropping the prices on there games.  Or not nearly enough. 

 I've always been a wait and see gamer.  I feel I have enough patience to wait most games out until they hit the $29.99 or $19.99 price point.  Well the first time this backfired for me, was the first Phoenix Wright.  The game went out of stock everywhere within 3-4 months.  So low and behold I had to search hard to pay full price for Phoenix Wright.  Eventually they did produce another shipment, but this game was out of stock for 8-9 months before they finally put more stock in and even today this game runs nearly full priced on the used market. 

DS games don't typically get quite the drop that console games have gotten due to the cartridge.  But it used to be typically a game that released at $50.  This game would be on the market for one year and then hit either the $29.99 or $19.99 price.  EA was the biggest contributor as their sport games would come out in the August timeframe and typically be budget priced by April.  But now, discount games aren't very plentiful.  A quick search of the EBgames website showed only one PS3 game under $20, and one other game under $30.  Now the PS3 discount games run $50 (Dirt, Madden, etc.).  Xbox 360 fairs a little better due to it's larger base of consumers in America, but discount games still hit $50 and $40 before seeing the sweet $20-$30 spot.  The only exception to this rule seems to be games that were awful and bombed miserably (Sonic).  Even Nintendo has been fairly poor with price drops.  Zelda (a port launch game) sees no price drop.  Excite Truck, a decent game, with few racers on a booming system was allowed to go out of print rather than bring it in at $29.99. 

Maybe I was just spoiled by the piles of $20 software last generation.  But I feel game prices themselves are the biggest hindrance to the current generation of consoles.  And I see this as a negative trend as the publishers are determined to make us accept a significantly higher prices this generation.  What do you feel about the cost of current gen gaming?  Is it mass market?  Is it the accepted business of higher game development costs?  It's just dissapointing to me when I look at the PC market and games hit $19.99 despite being high definition within months. 

The wii has had some budget titles.

I'd like to see more though. You can sometimes catch a good deal, but they tend to sell out, rather than maintain a low retail price.

Yeah,
Games like Mario Kart DS and Pokemon Pearl never drop their prices as well.
The games that are uner 20 dollars for the ds are usually the movie games.

I agree -- the worst thing about this trend is lots of good games stop selling untill they a price cut ... but often in Australia instead of a price-cut the game just dissapears ... which sucks ...

Games on all consoles bring in huge amount of revenue.

Who knows, mabye after these consoles have been out for a few years the prices will go down a bit...we can only wait and see.

Lets hope Nintendo do something like Players Choice again.

yeah i hate that, like Gears of war is still full price i think.

I think the lack of price drops have everything to do with the fact that the PS3 and Wii have only had 18 months on the market. Give it time people. After this holiday season, prices are gonna drop across the board. I'll bet you all my VG$

jman8's right. Games don't normally get dropped until they've made their money back (unless they're a complete flop and move straight to clearance). Some games have dropped on the 360, but neither the Wii nor PS3 has been out on the market long enough for publishers to milk most titles for their full price value. If they don't start dropping by this holiday, they will shortly thereafter.