Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

[jmood88]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

Yeah most of the Xbox 360 games I have seen damn sure don't look like they have this "inflated development cost". Looks like price fixing to me.

Of course this isn't any new info, pretty much everbody knew this was the case already. The games still look impressive.

Microsoft is going about the same way they did with the Xbox. The GPU was not ready back at E3 in 2001, but this time the CPU and GPU haven't been sent to developers yet.

These kits lack a complete CPU at proper speed as well as the R500 GPU, this can't be emulated, because there is nothing that exists like it. These games are not running with full shaders, polygons, or max details.

Alpha kit specs...

Dual-core G5 @ 2GHz and Radeon X850 IIRC

Compared to actual hardware going in the Xbox 360

Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
1 MB L2 cache

10 MB of embedded DRAM
48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
Unified shader architecture

Very big difference

.

[myownsun]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

If anyone here forked out the $60 for any of those "Collector's Editions" of games like Madden, Halo, Doom, Splinter Cell, or any others, you helped make these gaming prices what they will become.

Don't you guys realize that this was a little experiment on the part of the game makers? To see if today's gamers would pay $60 for a game? Well, TONS of people did, and as a result, we basically told them, "Yes, if the game is good enough, we'll pay more for it."

.

Thats RiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighT!!!!!!! Great post!

[Graphik]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

Are y'all enjoying the wailing and gnashing of teeth? Should I bother to intercede with ... you know ... reading?

From the site:


The only "Age" here is the "Age of Online Retailers Making Wild Assumptions" .... and we been there for a long time.

Thats what I thought, I dont think those prices will stand.

[mgoblue]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

Thats what I thought, I dont think those prices will stand.

yeah, i'll wait for official price releases, just like i'll wait for more specific gameplay videos as well as hands on impressions...I'm in the camp that tries not to get super hyped up on renders and whatnot because it only leads to disappointment

[grunt]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

GAMEFLY

[videobastard]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

The price will go down eventually to $49.99. I will rent the games first before i buy them.

[SubZ]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

You are right TJdaSportsGuy, I made it a damn point NOT to buy Collectors Editions for that very reason, looks like there are too many idiots in the world that fell for it.<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_1643118", true); </SCRIPT>

[fishepa]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

I don't mind paying $60 for games considering it will probably take longer and cost companies alot more money to develop games.

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

I don't mind paying $60 for games considering it will probably take longer and cost companies alot more money to develop games.

I'm in the same boat you are, fish. I realize it's going to cost more to make, therefor it's going to cost more for us. I'm comfortable with it. I accept it.

[Flawless]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

Q: We've recently checked EBWorld's prices on games and the Activision and EA games are selling at $59.99, $10 more than normal. Will Microsoft sell its games for that price too?

Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO): We don't set the price, the retailers do. We can recommend the price, but that seems to me like the retailers are speculating those prices. We're not setting them. Higher prices are better executed with incremental increases, like some of our premium content, rather than a wholesale jump.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/615/615893p2.html

[Hellfish76]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

A. this is all just speculation
B. you control the price of games. If gamers don't buy as many games for $60 as they did for $50, then the profits will start to go down and companies will adjust to market demand. I'm guessing that the games may start out around $60 for Xbox360 because it will be the first next-gen system out, however by the time Nintendo and Sony come along with their systems, the price will go down to $50 again. It is obvious by the stability of the video game prices throughout the years that the companies realize that $50 is the sweet spot where they can maximize their profit.

[Brian_OS]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

Some of the first Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo games were $59.99 and higher at launch. What's the big deal?

[fishepa]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

Some of the first Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo games were $59.99 and higher at launch. What's the big deal?

Everybody is complaining probably because back in those days mommy and daddy would buy the games for them. Now that they have to spend their own money they don't want to shell it out.

[Brian_OS]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

then they need to find a new hobby... As a great man once sang "Cry Me A River"

[nbasuperstar40]

Re: Welcome to the age of 59.99 games

Some of the first Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo games were $59.99 and higher at launch. What's the big deal?

Here's an hint for those days, pirate cartitages, they worked like new.