I love video games. Like most of you, I spend my night pouring over sites like Joystiq and scraping the corners of Twitter for the latest from all corners of the industry. What’s next? What’s big? Who’s “winning”? These are just some of the questions that we may ask ourselves on a daily basis. However, gamers who consider themselves “in-the-know” can sometimes lose track of the big picture.
The purpose of this article and the (albeit minimal) research behind it stems from the fact that my shelf is populated with roughly four times as many Xbox 360 games as PlayStation 3 games and I sometimes wonder why. I mean sure, there are some pretty fantastic Xbox 360 exclusives in the pile but there are also a number of fine titles that I could have purchased for Sony’s shiny black grill instead and didn’t. Why?
Pricing is as good a reason as any and as far as older games go, the PS3 has a major problem on its hands. Let’s take a look at Rainbow Six: Vegas first. Here we have two games which claim to offer the same experience (some may even say the Xbox 360 version is better, but we won’t touch that subject at the moment) and yet the PlayStation 3 version (that’s the one for the system currently in last place) actually costs $10 MORE. You’d think the powers that be would try everything in their power to boost the attach rate for the most expensive system on the market. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.
I know what you’re saying to yourself, or perhaps even shouting at the computers screen; “Mike!” you yelp, “You damn nitwit. The PlayStation 3 version was released a good seven months after the Xbox 360 edition and therefore hasn’t had the same time to be discounted!”
Good point, young Billy. With that logic cemented in the heads of the people making the pricing calls, surely the sequel, which was released on both systems simultaneously, should in turn follow the same pricing model regardless of platform, and yet…
Bummer. It looks like the PS3 owners are still being fleeced, but that can’t be the end of the story, right?. Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have some serious exclusive heavyweights in their respective corners and the pricing of those titles is probably pretty much in line with one another…
“Enough already!” you shout. “Sure, these are just a couple of examples. What about some of the PlayStation 3’s most hyped older titles? Those have to have come down in price by now!”
Alas…
Honestly, this could go on all day if we really wanted it to. We could bring up the fact that while LittleBigPlanet and Fable II were both GOTY contenders, released for $60 on the very same day last year (Oct. 21), and yet one is now half price while the other holds steadfast at $60. In fact, I think we just did bring it up.
Now let’s be clear on something: we’re not pointing the finger at anyone in particular here. As was seen by Best Buy’s recent “BUY EVERYTHING FOR $10!” sale, retailers still have a fair bit of control over the price at which they allow their merch to walk out the door. However, there does seem to be a rather disturbing trend forming that doesn’t bode well for current for prospective PlayStation 3 owners.
Those of you who had the pleasure of gaming in the mid-to-late 90’s will remember Sony’s format advantage over the Nintendo 64 in that the CD’s the PlayStation used were much cheaper to produce that Nintendo’s cartridges. At the time this lead to PlayStation games debuting for $10 to $20 cheaper than their N64 counterparts and also being discounted far sooner. When all was said and done the N64 sold less than 1/3 as many consoles as its disc-based foe.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, with pricey Blu-ray technology going up against the now dirt-cheap DVD format, will a similar fate befall the PlayStation 3? Sound off in the comments.
**All prices used in the above comparisons were obtained from online pricing lists and the retail sites of national chains such as Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart**
5 Responses
[...] See original here: Who’s To Blame For Pricey PS3 Titles? [...]
Posted on June 16th, 2009 at 2:32 AM
I don’t yet own a PS3 of my own, but seeing as how I will be picking one up within the next six months or so, I have been keeping an eye out for some games I’d want to pick up when the time comes. I gotta say, I was pretty shocked when I saw the price of Lair in my local Best Buy recently. By all accounts that game was pretty terrible, so I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to find it at around $5-$10 now.
As far as PS3 console sales being lower than 360 sales due to pricey disc formats – I dunno, it’s hard to say. I’m sure the cost of Blu-ray discs isn’t helping anything, but I think that’s just one of a pile of other problems Sony has this generation.
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Posted on June 16th, 2009 at 4:52 AM
Well, I seem to be on this site here and there trying to defend the PS3 whenever i can, because I feel that the system for some reason has been laced with negativity. I’m a diehard Sony fan rom the original PSX days. Correction, i’m just a plain old game fan in general, whatever system it may be. I have 200 PS2 games and only 15 or 20 Xbox games. At the time i just prefered the titles coming out on the PS2 vs. the Xbox. Not to choose one system over the other, i just prefered the software, and the Sony hits line was a great perk, which Microsoft adopted as their Platinum hits or whatever it was called.
That’s all fine and dandy but those were last gen systems. I happen to agree with the software pricing debacle for this current generation of games this article points out. Yeah, yeah i get the cost that goes into all these new games hence the higher price tag, but a greatest hists is still a greatest hits and i feel that any game falling into that category should be priced at $20. Throwing down a single Jackson is a lot easier than a twenty plus a whoever is on the 10 dollar bill. One major perk the PS2 had was their HUGE line of $20 greatest hits collection. That system had a TON of great games but the pricing of said games probably helped system sales as well.
Personally, i’m usually pretty frugal these days and when I heard the games for these new systems were going to run $60 instead of the usual standard $50 games have been sold for for years, I was a little bummed. Although it wasn’t as disheartening as I expected because I waited until last year to purchase my PS3, for financial reasons. BUT by the time I had made my purchase there were A LOT of games with drastically lowered pricing to choose from.
I’ve had my system for almost a year now and I have 30 or 33 games for it and i have only paid full price ($60) for THREE of them because I just had to have them immediately. I paid the 30 dollar hits price for about 5 of my games. You know what i paid for the rest of my collection? Mostly 10 to 20 dollars, with a few 25 dollar games in the mix. If THAT isn’t cheap then I have no idea know what you guys want, and maybe neither do you.
I understand you’re talking about “standard” title pricing. Again, i agree with you that Sony should return to their $20 hits cost versus their current $30. Yet being the cheap jerk that I am, i made it a habit finding great deals on PS3 and PSP games. There are plenty of deals out there if you know where to find them. I wont list my entire game collection but just to give you a general idea:
Walmart CURRENTLY sells Folklore and Silent Hill: Homecoming for $20 each. Meijer has had a 24 dollar price tag on Folklore for almost a year. I pity the idiot who pays full price for that great game.
I got a free copy of MGS4 with my PS3 purchase.
I paid $15 for Condemned 2., Newegg has had it for as low as 12.
$15 for Uncharted at Target
$20 for Heavenly Sword during an Amazon sale.
$25 for LittleBigPlanet on Newegg last month.
$10 for Army of Two. Ehh for 10 bucks why not?
$25 for Far Cry 2 during an Amazon Christmas sale.
$15 for Lego Indiana Jones
$25 for Lego Batman (which is now $20)
$30 for Disgaea 3 at Meijer which is still considered a new game elsewhere.
$10 for Dark Sector
$10 for Stranglehold
$12 for Lost Planet.
$15 for Assassins Creed this past holiday season.
$20 for Burnout Paradise
I paid $20 for Genji at Circuit City last year when it was 60 everywhere else. if it was a pricing mistake well screw them cos i got a great deal on that game.
$24 GTA4 Collectors Edition on clearance at Target.
$15 for Afro Samurai on clearance at Target. The 360 “clearance” price was $40. WTF???
Target had some Tom Clancy futuristic type of online war shooter colectors boxed set, with a blutooth earpiece included, for $25.
I can go on and on but you get my point. Why anyone would pay full price for a game I have no idea. So again, maybe in general terms, there is a slight pricing difference. For people who like getting ripped off then go ahead and don’t shop around. Although there are great pricing alternatives out there if you know where to look. Check out the internet before you go shopping (cheapassgamer.com). Sometimes the stores pricing my even be different than their online pricing depending on their stock and whether that particular title is on clearance. Just stop off at a couple of different places and look around, it’s what being cheap is all about. My brother bought MegamanX and Capcom Classics Remixed for the PSP for $3.75 each. LESS THAN 4 DOLLARS FOR A PSP GAME??? You just cannot beat that!
Come on people keep your eyes open and your wallets closed. The deals are out there. I even let Kewlrats in the loop on some cheap 360 games when I see them (Last Remnant for $15 a few month ago). I’m a lover, not a fighter. I’m a gamer, not a hater. Whatever system you own, there are great games out there for great prices if you look for them.
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Posted on June 17th, 2009 at 11:39 AM
@ tiger-spy
I completely agree with your sentiments about finding games on the cheap. There’s only been a handful of 360 games for which I’ve paid the full price. Most of my collection has come from CAG notices, Gamestop Buy 2 Get 1 used sales, and some nice amazon deals.
I think the issue the OP was referring to was the fact that your typical brick and mortar retailer seems to be lowering the prices on older PS3 titles at a much slower rate than prices on 360 games. Seeing as how it’s highly unlikely that these retailers are maintaining the prices of PS3 games because they think they can get a few extra bucks out of the consumer, I’d say the reason these games still cost as much as they do is because of the MSRP. For some reason MSRP for a good number of PS3 titles has remained high, while those for the 360 have gradually decreased to the $20-$40 range. Why?
As I mentioned earlier, I can’t think of a single reason somebody would pay full price for Lair after reading a review. Yet, there it is, sitting on the shelf for the same price it was listed at one year ago.
I think there’s a very real possibility that higher priced software could be hurting Sony’s tie-in ratio. If I had both a 360 and PS3 and wanted to purchase R6V2, why would I ever decide to go with the PS3 version over the 360 one?
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Posted on June 17th, 2009 at 10:45 PM
There’s that mention of Lair again. I forgot to add that to my list because i never picked it up, but i saw that priced pretty cheap at Meijer as well. I keep mentioning to that store, and for anyone outside of Michigan I apologize. Anyway i just checked their website and the game is listed at $44.20. Now, I forgot what i saw it for at the store but i think it was either $15 or $25. Hmm or maybe Turok was $15 and Lair was $25. Either way I played the Turok demo and it’s terrible. I’m not a huge FPS fan anyway (all the same garbage to me) but that game just wasn’t that great. I have also heard horrid reviews for Lair so I left both of those games on the shelf. I did get Ratchet & Clank for $15 though. 8) SWEET!
As for why the 360 games drop in price at a faster rate, my guess is supply and demand. With the larger 360 root system out there they obviously sell more games than their PS3 counterparts, hence the price drop. I’m not a retail mogul, and I don’t know how that works really. Whether the prices are decided upon by Sony/Microsoft, the publishers from their game sales, or the retailers themselves, I guess going cheaper is what i would do too if i had a 360.
Yet, because I have become way cheaper than I have ever been, i had to choose only one of the latest systems available. I went with the PS3 and i don’t regret it. Besides a small handful of Xbox exclusives that look delicious, no matter what the price may be, there aren’t THAT many games I wanna play. PS3 is finally getting Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma so that’s another exclusive i can check off that list. You Xboxers lucked out with the multi-platform release of FF13 so i can’t hold that over anyones head anymore. haha
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Posted on June 20th, 2009 at 6:20 AM
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