In case you haven't noticed, software game prices, especially ones from the major publishers, have been going up. In late 2022, Microsoft confirmed that prices for its first-party Xbox Series X and S games would go up to $69.99 in 2023, and that's exactly what happened. That's also what happened for Sony's PS5 first-party games. Premium editions of games have also hit the $100 mark or higher in some cases.
Even though video and PC games remain very expensive compared to other home entertainment options, one major publishing executive claims prices for games are not yet high enough.
Eurogamer reports that, during the Tokyo Game Show last week, Capcom's president and chief operating officer Haruhiro Tsujimoto stated pretty frankly, "Personally, I feel that game prices are too low."
Tsujimoto offered his reasons for this opinion:
"Development costs now are about 100 times more than they were during the Famicom era, but software prices haven't gone up to that extent," he explained. "There's also a need to raise wages in order to attract talent. Seeing as wages are rising in the industry as a whole, I think raising unit prices is a healthy business model," Tsujimoto concluded.
The article points out that Capcom remains one of the few major game development and publishing companies that has not raised prices for its AAA titles yet to $69.99. Games like Street Fighter 6 and the most recent Capcom game Exoprimal both launched this year for Xbox and PlayStation platforms at $59.99.
Tsujimoto didn't address how the rise of game subscription services like Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass could affect the cost of game development. Xbox Game Pass allows people to access full versions of hundreds of games, even recent games like Capcom's Exoprimal, for a monthly fee that's far lower than the price for one AAA game.
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