During the holidays IG had a chance to think a bit about the price of retail games. The standard price for PS3/Xbox 360 games when they release is $60 (while it's $50 for Wii games). This is almost completely universal, save some budget/shovelware releases. It's a high price for a single piece of entertainment, and while many would say that games offer more value than movies or TV shows, there are some significant flaws with that argument.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
I haven't played but 5 games this gen worth the retail asking price of $59.99 to be perfectly honest.
1. Uncharted
2. Uncharted 2
3. Vanquish
4. Bionic Commando
5. The Fight: lights out (my most played game this gen)
That's it. Now PSN is another matter all together. I love PSN games and buy copious amounts of them and never regret it. But this gen has really been lackluster in terms of quality content worth your time, money and efforts. Most games, some 95% of them, are all hype. The best games, 9x's out of 10 are the games no one gave much attention to or didn't give a chance because more money was being thrown else where.
Yeah, I really don't think most games are worth 60 bucks at all. If the publishers would launch at 30 or 40 right away, they'd probably get more sales at that price point and wouldn't have to bitch about used games as much.
PS3 uses bluray 360 doesnt. Point being 360 gaames should deffintly be cheaper.
If games were $40, I probably would have bought twice as many this generation. I think lots of games (especially lesser known ones) could make more money if they weren't released at $60. Take Mindjack for instance. I might pay $40 for it, but definitely not $60.