Games consoles aren't terribly expensive as one off purchases. Looking at America your general purchaser could walk out the store with a console for under $200. However the console itself isn't terribly useful without games and acessories so you could easily tack on $50 for another controller and up to $50/60 (which is the typical price) for the games. If consumers are balking at paying $20-30 for a BR disc, then what about a game which costs 2-3* as much? It adds up to a quite considerable amount over several years. yes, in fact they are balking at the prices with software revenue down 23%, but total units sold were only down by 4% year over year. Link .

This accounts for just present owners of the consoles who are having trouble stomaching the cost of games during this recession. This group includes the more avid gamers on the inside of this console generation who have shown a tendency to be more willing and able to make gaming purchases. However from the outside you have a group of people whom have to take into account the price of games, consoles and accessories and consider them all as factors as for whether or not they wish to jump into a console purchase. Console gaming competes with other entertainment mediums, its not simply 3 islands of Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 gaming paradises. Console gaming is a considerable investment of both time and money and it has competition from every other type of media and entertainment you can think of.

I believe that both the console manufacturers and the content producers have to learn and understand that a little price discrimination is good for the soul. With books being the closest form of media to games in terms of the usage patterns and time investment you can see how they have an initial print of higher cost hardback books for the hardcore book readers and people who have to buy the book straight away, followed soon after by a paper back release. With games this process is haphazard, theres no assurance that a game will drop in price in any particular time frame or even not be completely withdrawn from the market before recieving a price drop.

If content producers are only going to willingly cater to the people who are both willing and able to purchase games at the full price of $50/60 they will cut themselves out of the parts of the market where people are willing to pay less for a game but still enjoy the experience. This is almost 100% lost revenue for them because the extra cost to produce one more copy of a game is minimal next to the price they charge at retail. So what they need is to throw the people a bone and stick to fairly precise modus operandi in their pricing structure. Everyone knows that movies get a cinema release followed by a DVD release followed by a Cable TV release and finally over the air broadcast. With games theres no such structure, so why not have a full price release, followed by a download only release at say $40 3 months after retail and finally a platinum $20-30 release after that? If people get some certainty then they'll know to wait if the price is too high rather than forgetting about the game entirely.

Where do I sign?

Are they really that expensive though.
I recently got a lend of COD 1 of a friend for my PS2.
The price tag was still on it and it cost 55 Pounds.
That was pre Euro.

I remember gears 2 coming out and it was 59 Euro new.
So are they really that expensive I wonder.

@ Reask: People can buy DVDs for $5, rent them for less and enjoy them with more people. 4 people can gather around to play a DVD, but if 4 people wanted to do that with a game they will most likely need 3 extra controllers $150, make sure the batteries are charged and have a game that everyone likes. Its a lot easier to find a movie that 4 different people will like as well, and they can cost as little as $5.

So yes they are expensive, but its a relative condition.

Ahh but a game is 12-100 hours long (usually) vs. a two hour long movie. That's the price justification in a gamers head.

I agree. Here in germany and some countries sourrounding it, it's really bad. Games are 50 Euro PC/Wii, 40 DS and 60 X360/PS3 and they barely drop. 50 Euro are roughly 70 Dollar so you can calculate for yourself. But then look at uk where games are 25-30 pounds. 30 pounds are around 40 dollars. Since we have the goddamn euro it sucks for everything, just way too expensive. And we have not such a big structure for renting games too and if it's 3-5 Euros per day. So I would really love some thing like the one you said. But I doubt something you can count on because most companies want their money as fast as possible and I guess they would be afraid to lose the first day buyers that now wait for the Platinum Version. As I said in another thread, gaming is still luxury and luxury sometimes drop in price if the creator thinks it should or release a better version but overall they want the most out of it and they won't cut their own flesh by admitting that you can get it for half the price half a year later.

Lets say there are two countries in the world, Austria and Australia. In Austria we have 100,000 really big fans of the game who are willing to pay $30 per game to own it and in Australia there are 100,000 people who are all pretty much casual fools who won't pay more than $20 for a game.

(Assuming that someone in Australia cannot play a game made for Austria and vice versa)

Now they can sell the game for $60 and make $6,000,000 in Austria but none in Australia.

They can sell the game for $30 and make $3,000,000 each in Austria/Australia.

Or they can sell the game for $60 in Austria and $30 in Australia and make $9,000,000

In this case its not the countries which are different but the time of release. The market which buys the game 6 months after release is generally not the same market which buys the game the week of release. 6 months later most people have probably forgotten about the game anyway and you're looking at the market which tends to make purchases based on impulse rather than prior planning. For this reason an online distribution method makes a lot of sense as they can change the price at whim and still offer an incentive for some people to buy the full price release.

Sorry man, but you got so many thing wrong in here, that I got to correct you.

1. No, it's not the fault of the Euro, we got milked all the time even before. Thanks to the Euro you are now able to import games really cheap from the Uk, which I do all the time.

2. The reason why we do get milked is in my opinion, that at the beginning of modern video games the exchange rate between US-dollar and D-Mark was around 4:1 and it dropped ever since.

3. I still have my first ever video games magazine (from around 1991) and the prices where between 120-140 D-Mark for Sega Mega Drive games (that's between 60-70 Euros).

So the prices haven't changed at all and have actually dropped a lot if you calculate the inflation in

As for the opening post. I don't think this will change anything. It's only the million sellers, who keep their prices up (look at the titles with Wii in it). As for the rest, you already get you huge price drop even wihtin one month.

@fmc83: you're right and maybe I pronounced me wrong, really tired today. You're right with that the prices haven't really changed. i said that in another thread to, but my point was, that I get less for the money I have. Because many things needed for living are 1:1 DM/Euro now and I get less money than I did at times of DM. So in fact the prices are the same but still more expensive. Anyway the point is it is just too expensive and I can feel it more with the Euro than I did with DM.

@Squilliam: That's a good point.

Good points Squilliam, but I've got to disagree. If you look at the best selling games this gen, they are all full priced (for their console) All of the 1st party Nintendo games that are selling well are doing so without price drops, even after years on the market. What's the RRP for Nintendogs??

Although it is certainly true that a game now has to be either low priced or long lasting in order to sell.