Saturday, August 30, 2008

Game prices aren’t going to fall

Soul Calibur IV and Super Mario StrikersA recent article in the Daily Reveille tells frequent game buyers something we all already know - game prices aren’t going to fall. Abraham Felix’s article discusses the average $50-$60 dollar price tag on console games and also cites a Reuters report that videogame and software sales are still continuing to rise, despite the increase in average price.

Felix goes on to state that that the prices aren’t going to fall as long as consumers are willing to pay such premium prices. The article also goes on to suggest that an increase in episodic games or new developing concepts could make game prices fall. Personally, I don’t see this happening. If anything, I could see an episodic game costing players more money than a single game in the long run, should players purchase every episode. Also, I doubt a new developing concept would make companies lower prices - they already know they can get $50-60 per game and I don’t think they’d drop prices unless they started seeing a decrease in sales.

Here’s what will probably happen - people will cut down drastically when it comes to buying new games. Meanwhile, used stores and websites that can sell games at a discount, like GameStop, Amazon, Half.com or Goodwill/Salvation Army, will see a surge in video game sales. It’ll probably take a while, maybe a few years, but then game companies will see that $60 videogames are ludicrous and we’ll finally see an average $30-40 price range again. I know I rarely purchase games new. The only time I will is if I know it is a limited release game.

Read [Daily Reveille]

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