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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Dear PlayStation Fans: Trickle-Down Economics Isn't Real!

SvennoJ on 17 September 2022
rapsuperstar31 said:

Technology prices generally go down not up.  The cost of making video games might be higher, but the distribution prices are way cheaper for digital games and you have other ways to make a profit such as loot boxes and dlc that weren't there on the ps1/Saturn days.  Selling a million copies used to be a big deal, and now some big games are considered a disappointment if they fail to hit 5 million, hell people consider The Last of Us part 2's 10 million a disappointment. Video game companies can only charge what people are willing to pay for them.  If gamers are willing to pay $70, $100, or more for a game, than companies can charge it, if gamers are not willing to pay that than companies need to figure out how to lower the cost of development or the game industry just implodes one day.  Most of the video game companies are continuing to report record breaking profits these days, even with the impending if not already here recession. 

It's not Sony that is posting record breaking profits though

And yes thanks to digital, MTX, DLC, Season passes it has taken until now that video game prices see a price hike



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kazuyamishima on 17 September 2022
Chrkeller said:
Azzanation said:

They arent the ones raising game and hardware prices.

No, they started the whole pay for online.  

And they turned Office, their biggest earner, into a subscription service. 

All in all, all companies only care about make more money. It’s to the customer to decide at the end what poison is better. 



sethnintendo on 17 September 2022
kazuyamishima said:
Chrkeller said:

No, they started the whole pay for online.  

And they turned Office, their biggest earner, into a subscription service. 

All in all, all companies only care about make more money. It’s to the customer to decide at the end what poison is better. 

I think you can still buy it out right but is it worth the money?   Probably not



Chrkeller on 17 September 2022
kazuyamishima said:
Chrkeller said:

No, they started the whole pay for online.  

And they turned Office, their biggest earner, into a subscription service. 

All in all, all companies only care about make more money. It’s to the customer to decide at the end what poison is better. 

Yep, exactly.  



SvennoJ on 17 September 2022
sethnintendo said:
kazuyamishima said:

And they turned Office, their biggest earner, into a subscription service. 

All in all, all companies only care about make more money. It’s to the customer to decide at the end what poison is better. 

I think you can still buy it out right but is it worth the money?   Probably not

You can, CAD 169 ($127) for Office Home/Student for 1 PC or Mac. Home/Business version is CAD 319 ($239)
Definitely not worth the money.



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Azzanation on 17 September 2022
Kyuu said:
Azzanation said:

They arent the ones raising game and hardware prices.

But I thought we have to understand the difference between making more money and making enough money to survive, and that as customers we need to support the latter not the former. What happened to this philosophy of yours? Should we not hold Microsoft accountable for making $70 billion more than enough money to survive on an annual basis? Or is this idea reserved for gaming divisions?

Xbox isn't raising game and hardware prices because they can use them as new selling points and good PR in a market where they're a distant last. Xbox was a relatively weak and declining brand compared to Playstation and Nintendo, so it was decided pro-consumerism and stronger value propositions are now required for its growth. The $80 billion acquisitions were also required.

Praise them all you want, but the very reason they're capable of pulling this off is because they're overcharging other customers via their dominant divisions lol.

The Xbox Devision isnt the company raking in all that money, and you have missed (or purposely dodged) the entire point. Xbox and Nintendo are selling games at the standard retail market prices. Why does it matter how much the parent company earns? This is about raising prices. Just because a brand is super wealthy doesn't mean they have to lower the price. 

Technically Xbox could raise the price on their consoles if they wanted to as they can afford to not sell them. Thats how bad it sounds when you say they can lower and afford the losses. The same can happen the other way as well.

Is Sony going bankrupt? If no, then they don't need to raise the prices. 

When Xbox wanted to raise Live prices, no one liked it, and they back pedaled the idea.

Chrkeller said:
Azzanation said:

They arent the ones raising game and hardware prices.

No, they started the whole pay for online.  

Yup, its part of the reason i prefer Steam. Online paywalls are a rip off. Another reason why hardware and software prices should not be going up.

Last edited by Azzanation - on 18 September 2022

Bob80 on 18 September 2022

Nobody wants to pay more for anything and yeah it is weird to pay $10 for a ps5 version when the content is the same as the $59 ps4 version. Truth is, we all want the latest blockbusters for $1 but when a deal seems to good to be true, it usually is.

The main concern gamers should have with things like game pass is that it could potentially mark the end of AAA story driven games. Loads of major 3rd party devs have spoken out about this and said it makes no business sense to put their main line games D1 on game pass. Heck even for smaller scale games it seems to be commercial suicide. Octopath 1 was on Game Pass and now part 2 is skipping Xbox altogether. Also the devs behind Crusaders King 3 have now decided to withdraw its involvement in Game Pass for a reason: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/08/paradox-cancels-xbox-game-pass-launch-after-discussion-with-partners



Conina on 18 September 2022
SvennoJ said:
sethnintendo said:

I think you can still buy it out right but is it worth the money?   Probably not

You can, CAD 169 ($127) for Office Home/Student for 1 PC or Mac. Home/Business version is CAD 319 ($239)
Definitely not worth the money.

You get MS Office keys for a few bucks at eBay... totally worth it!



Azzanation on 18 September 2022
Bob80 said:

Nobody wants to pay more for anything and yeah it is weird to pay $10 for a ps5 version when the content is the same as the $59 ps4 version. Truth is, we all want the latest blockbusters for $1 but when a deal seems to good to be true, it usually is.

The main concern gamers should have with things like game pass is that it could potentially mark the end of AAA story driven games. Loads of major 3rd party devs have spoken out about this and said it makes no business sense to put their main line games D1 on game pass. Heck even for smaller scale games it seems to be commercial suicide. Octopath 1 was on Game Pass and now part 2 is skipping Xbox altogether. Also the devs behind Crusaders King 3 have now decided to withdraw its involvement in Game Pass for a reason: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/08/paradox-cancels-xbox-game-pass-launch-after-discussion-with-partners

Companies are not forced to do anything. Its their choice if they want to be day 1 on GP. If they want to make SP type games than they can. I don't understand why people believe devs have their hands tied. 1st Party i can understand but even then, StarField is proving these speculation wrong. 3rd Party Devs can do what ever they like, weather GP exists or not, its their choice.



Bob80 on 19 September 2022
Azzanation said:
Bob80 said:

Nobody wants to pay more for anything and yeah it is weird to pay $10 for a ps5 version when the content is the same as the $59 ps4 version. Truth is, we all want the latest blockbusters for $1 but when a deal seems to good to be true, it usually is.

The main concern gamers should have with things like game pass is that it could potentially mark the end of AAA story driven games. Loads of major 3rd party devs have spoken out about this and said it makes no business sense to put their main line games D1 on game pass. Heck even for smaller scale games it seems to be commercial suicide. Octopath 1 was on Game Pass and now part 2 is skipping Xbox altogether. Also the devs behind Crusaders King 3 have now decided to withdraw its involvement in Game Pass for a reason: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/08/paradox-cancels-xbox-game-pass-launch-after-discussion-with-partners

Companies are not forced to do anything. Its their choice if they want to be day 1 on GP. If they want to make SP type games than they can. I don't understand why people believe devs have their hands tied. 1st Party i can understand but even then, StarField is proving these speculation wrong. 3rd Party Devs can do what ever they like, weather GP exists or not, its their choice.

Well I'm talking hypothetically. Right now Game pass isn't big enough to force anything. However, it is kinda scary when we have a trillion $ company with the recources to buy major publishers and force a sub model that could potentially disrupt the entire industry. If Microsoft starts putting major IPs D1 on game pass, people will likely expect everything to come to gp and stop buying games alltogether. Problem with that is that only a certain type of games seem to be feasible with the gp model. For example, here's why Calisto Protocol is not coming to Game pass

"Speaking to True Achievements, Chief Technology Officer Mark James dissed Game Pass and went on to describe the model as "difficult." Although The Callisto Protocol team might "think about it" for Game Pass, we wouldn't count on it. James continued: "You play through once [in The Callisto Protocol]. I think those services are built towards some of the open-world style and repetitive multiplayer games. I think games [like that] survive well on that service."

According to James, Games Pass doesn't always fit for independent studios that release single-player games. Well, at least in financial terms. He goes on to remind us that there are single-player games on Game Pass or coming to it - we're looking at you Starfield - but he thinks they'll come from the hardware companies themselves."

https://www.ggrecon.com/articles/the-callisto-protocol-developer-dismisses-xbox-game-pass/

 

Last edited by Bob80 - on 19 September 2022