The smell of fresh new plastic... that's something that's brought me back from two years ago. I did watch the Nintendo Switch 2 ND, albeit a few days late; but that event has kickstarted this new generation, and with it comes the new baseline price and knee-jerk reactions.

No one likes change.

We had price hikes last gen with the NS1 cart tax and the PS5/XSX RT tax.
And now, this gen, the NS2 continues with the NS2 express cart tax sequel?

Video game pricing is nothing new, and to repeat what I said back in last gen's thread:

Is 80eur 90eur a reasonable price? Is there a point for this when price devaluates months down the line? Do you have a value threshold?

What is your own perception?

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UPDATE 01/05/2025:

Well, this happened sooner than I thought and we didn't have to wait till next gen.
Due to this I had to change the title of the thread from "Gen 10" to "Tariff".

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/464586/microsoft-raises-the-price-of-xbox-consoles-games-and-accessories/

As the link states, Microsoft has followed suit and increased the prices in its whole range.
Xbox will have $80 games and price hikes on consoles and accessories.

Makes you wonder when Sony will come around and face the tariffs.

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It's good to be back VGC :)

If no one likes change, there wouldn't be new generations.

New game prices is one thing, but one trend I really wish would go away is fully-priced re-releases from previous generations, remakes and remasters. It's become bonkers across several platforms. Releasing on new platforms years later and at full price is also crazy. Remasters are cheap and lazy, the main body of work was already done long ago, it's often simply a case of giving it a new coat of paint and some effects. Many of these efforts are outsourced. Nixxes releases on PC is a good example, they're great ports, but I refuse to buy them for full price when they release years later and are essentially re-skinned older games. GTA and Skyrim are other offenders in this regard, it's beyond parody.

Nintendo are no better, I bought the Switch and BotW and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the latter being a re-release of a Wii U title for full price (yes, there was some new content, but it's unacceptable as a standard). Not to mention games never falling in price; older goods should lower in price over time, it's the standard in almost any industry and around almost any type of goods on earth.

For me, the equation is simple enough though; I don't buy anything that I don't deem worth it. That goes for games, consoles, movies or what have you.

I've seen that smaller studios still sell their bigger titles at 60$ (like Owlcat Games' "Rogue Trader" fro 50$ on release, a game which gives any AAA release a run for its money it terms of sheer quality and mass), or even lower, brand new. It makes sense in many cases to price the game according to its actual production cost and effort spent, its implementation of advanced tech etc. That is to say, I feel like the norm should be, at most, 70$, and then below for simpler games with much smaller budgets. Indie titles are always cheaper, and for good reason, yet some of them have more content than major studio releases.

And it's good to have you back.

And in regards to Sterling: nothing really. They shuffle along, being over the peak in popularity and as they are independent and have to pay staff they get more desperate in generating views, so they jump on every little drama and controversy. Enough like that thing, but for me the constant negativity got too much so I stopped watching.

Touché Conina! ... and thanks to that I am here again. The start of a new generation is always exciting

I skipped Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as I had played it to death on the WiiU and the additional content did not warrant a repurchase. Thankfully the NS2 is comptaible with NS1 games, so this time around you just need to purchase the upgrade if you are inclined do it. At least we have this option now. It was a shame on Switch, as I missed a whole generation without Mario Kart, did not get to try Bowser's Fury or play Pikmin 3 co-op

Thanks Mnementh for the welcome and update on Sterling, did notice the videos were less popular now. Still brings up some good points.

First off, welcome back. Extra credit for pointing out what the lootboxes in Mario Kart World are about.

The past few years have changed my perception of value a bit because of the significant inflation due to Russia's war. I asked myself why I should hold back on purchasing certain video games when the alternative is that my money loses its purchasing power due to my investment portfolio possibly not being able to outpace inflation. That's when I started to add more remasters of Wii U games to my Switch collection with not much care for their prices at the time. Mario Kart 8, Captain Toad, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Hyrule Warriors, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze and Xenoblade Chronicles X; possiby more that I can't remember right now. That way I got something for my money that is definitely worth it, because I knew that I would spend many, many hours on these games.

At the end of the day value is about how many hours of true enjoyment you get out of games and whether or not a game is so good that you are going to replay it. If the answer is "a lot" for the former and "yes" for the latter, then the price becomes pretty insignificant for anyone who isn't in the situation that they have to live from paycheck to paycheck. I had to rebuy Mario Kart 8 in order to get to the expansion pass with 48 tracks, which itself costed money. But so what? More than 100 hours of blissful entertainment were always guaranteed.

All else I can say on the matter is wages need to be raised to combat inflation, and I wouldn't be surprised if much of today's inflation is Russia's fault. Nothing good has come out of Russia since the release of Tetris.

I buy what I like, and don't buy what I'm not interested in. I come from a time when PCs that had monochrome graphics and sounds like a cat orgy cost thousands of dollars, when video game consoles were considered a pricey luxury. The Intellivision and Astrocade were $300 consoles, and that was back in 1979. Final Fantasy VI (FFIII in its original U.S. release) was $90 at Walmart and was kind of hard to find a few months after its original release, but I was lucky to find a used copy of it at a mom-and-pop shop, no box, for $40. I also don't buy games just because they're cheap, if I have no interest in them. A $70 game that I'll play for 100 hours is worth more to me than $20 on a bunch of Steam sale games that I'd never touch to begin with. 

I'm not nuts about increasing prices, but I'll grudgingly accept it. What I mostly object to is in-game monetization, which is getting increasingly obnoxious.

Remember Covid, that's where the accelerated inflation came from. Mostly from Trump's completely botched response to a global pandemic, but it would have happened regardless. (just not as bad if handled better)

For inflation in electronics you can blame Bitcoin mining for that next to streaming. Supply hasn't been able to keep up with much faster growing demand for bandwidth and data centers.

Russia plays a role as well, but quite a minor one on the world stage. Nothing compared to Trump attacking the whole world economy or Biden blindly backing Israel leading to "By June 2024, Suez transits of dry bulk cargo ships were down nearly 80 percent on a year-to-year basis as operators rerouted grain and ore shipments to avoid the Red Sea stress zone."

But true, nothing good since Tetris I can get behind. Andrei Tarkovsky made great movies, actually his last one came out the year he died, 1986, 2 years after Tetris ;) However without Russia the space station would have been in trouble. At least in space countries can still cooperate.
https://www.reuters.com/science/spacecraft-carrying-russians-american-takes-off-baikonur-cosmodrome-2025-04-08/



Anyway inflation is a tool of the mega rich, keep those pesky wage costs down giving smaller pay raises than price hikes due to inflation. Trump and his Billionaire friends are doing it right out in the open, tarifs aka taxes on buying products while reducing taxes for billionaires, corporations, increasing work hours for minors, getting rid of social assistance etc.



Value of a game is to me how it makes me feel. A short game like Journey is more valuable to me than 100 hours of Ass Creed Tasks. Hence I bought the digital, new physical edition and sound track, while getting Ass Creed games from the bargain bin.

And the scope / variety, I didn't hesitate at all to buy the deluxe FS2020 edition at release, CAD 150 at the time. Same with GT7, got the digital version for convenience and steelbook physical edition.

Yet when I pay $10 for a digital game that sucks it still feels like a rip off.

Perhaps it's time for another July 14, 1789, France.