I disagree on both ends, to be honest, but then Zak and Wiki went down quickly here in the U.S. (although I bought it Day One, and don't regret a penny of it) and Okami could be found in the mid-20's if you looked around a bit. Also, both of those started at only $40 here. I'm guessing it was different in Australia, though...

Well I wouldn't mind if HD games cost up to $90 in the States.
That's at least the price of a new game here in mainland Europe :D

Pal regions get fu--ked by inflated prices. Thats why australia gets f---ed by game prices. We pay 110$ for PS360

Is that ignoring the fact that our prices include tax and American doesn't?

I believe when you go in and buy a $50 game in the US you pay out more than $50 (unless paying with a credit card or something like that) Wheras in Europe tax is included in the RRP.

And I am not certain about the $ - Euro exchange rate.... but here in the UK I think games are actually cheaper than in the US for once, even though not long ago some games had us paying almost double.

I think £40 is currently worth just under $50.... which is probably why gaming has seen a nice boost here compared to the rest of the world.

Japan used to have the cheapest prices when comparing Yen to $.... but now it is probably one of themost expensive places to buy games (except places like Brazil where you have to buy imports at about triple price, or maybe Australia too)

As of right now, $50 is ~39 Euros.  Yay for American Prices.

@twroo

What about sports games like WWE, Pro Evo, Madden? Do u really think they cost twice as much on Wii as they do on PS2? They have slight graphical updates & use motion controls.

So dev costs must be way lower. The ps360 games have a lot of work done on graphics so i could see the price going up for those consoles. But why is the price of these Wii games at $50? Does nobody agree that this is a rip-off?

Well don't forget that shipping, advertizing and all others costs are the same for every version of a game, PS360, PSP, DS or wii games, so saying they should cost the half is not correct IMO.

I think the price of wii games is correct, in my country, a wii game costs 45-50€, a ps360 game 65-70€.

I said "average" game. The current Wii games may not cost much more than the later PS2 games... but think about the early PS2 games as well.

This is a matter of perspective. It's not that dev costs are lower for the Wii.... but that they are higher for the HD consoles.
A game costing barely 100k to develop back in the NES days was still sold for $50.

A average Wii game costs more to make than any previous consoles average game... yet the prices to consumers remain the same, HD games have been forced to have a price increase because dev costs are spiralling out of control.... this is why developers are going bankrupt.

Well it sure would be nice if we could get some players choice games, it is ridiculous that Metroid Prime 3 is still selling for 49.99!!

Oh, and at that bit in particular.... that is bullshit.

The value of a product is nothing to do with the market value of an items components... the Wii probably costs only 1/4 the money to produce than the PS3, yet it is only about 1/2 the price. But this has nothing to do with the value to the consumer. The Wii, as shown by it's sales (HW and SW) is clearly of higher value to consumers than the PS3, because more people are buying it.

Similarly a game works on the same principle.... Mario Kart Wii may not have cost as much to make as Super Mario Galaxy, but clearly MKWii is of more value to most gamers than SMG is.

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Or another analogy I have used before... jewellery. If you have ever bought, say an expensive ring.... think about how much silver is in such a small thing like a ring.... if you were to melt a single silver ring down you might get £5 worth of silver at the most, and it would be quite a big ring to get that much too.