Exactly. $49.99 was the standard for most console video games from the NES through the sixth generation. I get that Wii games were still $49.99, but that's because the hardware was far weaker than the other seventh-gen consoles.

And with the replacement cycle of Xbox and PlayStation taking longer than it used to be, it makes sense that we would only go 2 generations with $59.99 as the standard. After all, the Xbox 360 launched about 15 years ago at this point.

I don't like the price going up, but it's inevitable. 

Ok with it. That’s the cost of inflation and really $10 more is not that bad all things considered. Game development costs are substantially more than they were - but just as long as they keep producing great quality games I can live with this.

Inflation alone makes this unavoidable, im surprised we werent talking about it a couple of months ago when it was a looming event.

I dont know if I care for it, because I dont usually buy games on release date since I dont feel they are worth it - for the most part. I dont feel Trials of Mana was worth the $50 I payed for it and I dont feel the new Shantae game is worth $30, so I wont pay for it. Sometimes price tags take a backseat to value. That said, value is subjective and I can think of a couple of games I will absolutely want on release date and will pay $70 for it if must. So all in all I can quite say this will change they way I decide which games I buy or how many games I buy.

That along with the fact that production budgets have gone up significantly in the last 15 years. If it costs more to make something than its obviously going to cost more to buy it.

1.I'm acknowledging that game development has risen significantly since the PS2 era, my point is that the increased AAA game sales,DLC, and micro-transactions more than makes up for these rising development costs.

2.Modern Warfare 2019 is on pace to become the bestselling game of the series, plus Activison also gets revenue from Micro-transactions in the game.

3.The amount of franchises growing this gen is far exceeding the ones on a decline. Plus even if they're on a decline, they're still more than profitable for these developers. And why in the world does a relatively small budget game Just dance needs a price hike? The game's budget is barely increasing if at all since it doesn't have to deal with creating worlds or environments, using Just Dance's decline is an extremely bad example.

4.Console gaming is growing, total console sales been growing gen after gen and also console revenue. Market share revenue for consoles does not show it growing because it's slighty losing market share to the other game platforms since the others are growing faster. It doesn't mean that console gaming is not growing, it just means console gaming isn't growing quite as fast as the others.

5.Why should it come now if developers are doing more than fine with DLC & Micro-transactions?

UK high street prices usually remove some of that value, Games are meant to be £55 here now (PS3 era it was £50) but most can be got for £45 or lower if you buy physical. The issue comes from online stores where there's no competition. They fix prices really, New games will be £60, no other option. You get the HD only PS5, expect to pay more for games, even though there's no packaging, shipping costs or resale value. :P

Bobby Kotick's 26th Ferrari is not gonna pay itself...

Actually what I was originally saying is that PS5 is repeating the same mistakes as the PS3 including an increased cost in games.  But you may be right.  Maybe it's not Sony's fault.  When the PS5 ends up selling like the PS3, then they can always blame their third party partners.

I just checked in my allknowing excel file, which were the most expensive games I ever bought... there weren't very many for more than €50:

And most of them included some valuable physical extras (PSVR AIM-controller, a €40 PS3-headset, a solid Big Daddy statue, a huge ME:C box with an awesome Faith-statue, a pretty steelbook or a guitar controller:

Others were more expensive because of import costs of uncut versions (the German versions of Hellgate: London, Resident Evil 4 and CoD: Modern Warfare were cut)... and yeah: buying Hellgate: London wasn't my best decision.

My most expensive digital version ever is Half-Life: Alyx, followed by "The Orange Box" (including HL2, Portal + TF2).

Any other digital version I ever bought was under €30:

I also found my oldest receipt of a video game: in June 1992 I bought Monkey Island 2 for 70 DM (~36 Euros), my first pre-order game ever. It was "day one" for the Amiga version, the PC version was released half a year earlier:

A few years ago, Ron Gilbert signed my MI2-box, and the code-wheels of MI1 + MI2: