I would assume that Japanese get high wages...

You don't see the problem? Perhaps you just like to throw your money away for fun but when you let a publisher sell its game for a higher price all your causing is for them to exploit gamers and raise game prices. There are tons of JRPGs that will be as good as FF13, but the only reason why it will sell better than the rest is because of its name. People should not take crap like this from any company. We already let them set the standard to $59.99 (US $) and I feel that's more than enough.

Wow, darth.

Please don't post Kotaku's fail.

MGS4 was 8900Y. That's ~$15 more.

This is how game prices are in Japan. I'm surprised it's that cheap.

If FF13 suffers from mediocracy and repetitive gameplay, I'm going to be one pissed off black guy. lmao

@outlawauron

is it just me or are Kotaku's articles getting extremely un-researched nowadays

This final fantasy won't be able to sell as well as the PS2 / PS1 final fantasies because the small install base makes it impossible.

So they increase the price to compensate.

Going to some comments in this thread its apparent people have not heard of "SE tax". Rest assured the game is going to sell in the millions just in Japan and people will be more than happy to purchase the game at that price. I'm as cheap as they get but FFXIII will be a day 1 import for me.

The game is going to sell huge anyway, and they don't actually seem to being putting much of a premium on it, and in Japan launch prices are far more flexible. In the US, every game is released at the same price point (on a very small number of exceptions), but the same is not true in Japan

Why are you all making a big deal for NORMAL Japanese price.

8.240 yen usually tax is already included for Japan so thats pretty good actually.

Cheaper than other big budget PS3/360 games.

Resident Evil 5 was 8,800 yen and Metal Gear Solid 4 8,800 yen.

Star Ocean 4 8,925  yen

And for FF in general

Final Fantasy  VI  11,400 yen

Final Fantasy VII  6,800 yen

Final Fantasy VIII 7,800 yen

Final Fantasy IX   7,800 yen

Final Fantasy X    8,800 yen

Final Fantasy X-2  7,800 yen

Final Fantasy XII  8,990 yen

Dragon Quest VI on Super Famicom 11,970 yen

Dragon Quest VII 7,800 yen

Dragon Quest VIII 8,800 yen

Dragon Quest IX   5,980 yen

Music cds are generally 2,500 yen range sometimes in the 3,000 yen range.

DVDs 3,000-8,000 yen... most american movies 4,000-5,000 yen

Only cheap entertainment manga 400-620 yen for a single volume.240-300 yen for big weekly magazines.

1000 yen range for bunko volumes which are re-releases of old series with about sometimes 2 and half to 3 volumes in 1.

Although for games there is always the reissue that is like 2,990 yen - 3,990 yen.

Anyways if you wanna complain talk about Tales of Vesperia 7,800 yen its already been released once on 360 and compared to FF XIII,FFXIII is basically $4.77 more.

TOV compared to FF XIII is low budget and Namco should be ashamed.

Well, i can see this game reaching break-even point and profit in Japan alone with 2 months of release. How much S-E takes from those 89$? Should be more than 50$, so if the game sells 2 million with 2 months it will reach 100 million $, what's rumored to be it budget including marketing, so, every single copy in West will be pure profit.

Nice strategy, break-even with Japan and make profit with West.