PS3 Games Prices May Be Huge…Or Not
Published by Robert Staehlin September 26th, 2006 in Gaming, Sony, PlayStation 3.
Is Sony going to make up for its massive PS3 price cut by imposing equally massive price increases in the cost of the actual games? That’s the scenario painted by Japanese site Impress Watch and their latest column in the “Random Tracking” series.
The article states that the majority of PlayStation 3 titles in Japan will be priced in the 8,800 to 9,800 yen range, due to the rising costs of development. To compare, the standard price for a PlayStation 2 game there is 6,800 yen, with only the cream of the crop like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy hitting 8,800 yen threshold.
Naturally, there are a lot of iffy points in the article. There’s not a single source listed, instead, the sourcing is credited to “multiple information sources.” We all know how reliable that kind of information can be. Also, this is an article about the PlayStation 3 in Japan. The country already got a 20% price cut that was not enacted anywhere else on the planet as of yet. This could again be a very specific strategy that they’re only implementing for future Japanese PS3 owners.
We could be wrong, but this one doesn’t pass the smell test for us. Sony doesn’t need that kind of public relations nightmare at the moment, and insanely high game pricing would scare gamers away by the millions. As always, Portable Planet will keep you posted.
Source: IGN
Well, BluRay discs cost more, ps3 development costs more, so there’s a good reason that few publishers are ready with ps3 games (besides the late development kits). It’s the cost.
Sony has only said that they won’t charge more then $99 for games. Thanks, guys. The trouble is, if they don’t charge in the $75-$85 range, I doubt publishers will make enough money to develop more original games.
One reason why a lot of people liked HD-DVD is because of the extra manufacturing costs of BD - you can’t just convert DVD factories to BD factories. Consider that a Wii or X360 game is printed on a regular DVD - not even HD-DVD - and so the game is almost all profit (once it’s developed). The PS3 games still incur huge costs for publishing, and we haven’t discussed hosting your own online service (since Sony doesn’t know how that will work yet!).
That’s why the ps3 will be similar to the PSP - not really better than the competition, with a weird format, few movies and few games.
They haven’t been able to release GT for the PSP (and so I bought an ipod instead of a PSP), and guess what? They’re doing a half-assed GT4.5 for the ps3!
The few games that Sony is really showing off are FPS’s. But they don’t have MS’s online system developed (so FPS’s have less appeal) and X360 is known for this thing. So, except for Squeenix, their lineup is looking pretty weak.
It seems that Sony has chosen, for better or for worse, to adopt a “razor-and-blades” business model. This means that Sony intends to take a major hit on the “razor” (the console) to encourage adoption, and then, surprise surprise, jack up the price of “blades”. The lion’s share of that ninety-dolla game is going to be Sony’s massive licensing fees for everyone but Square Enix, because Squeenix games sell Sony consoles (and vice versa).
Compare this to the iPod model; sell songs on iTunes for cheap, driving down the cost of (legal) music downloads and encouraging people to buy portable music players like the (highly profitable for Apple) iPod. With Nintendo ripping off (oops, I meant “paying tribute to”) Apple hardware design, it’s no wonder that the big N is making its money on the hardware too.