Take-Two CEO: Xbox Series and PS5 Game Price Hike is Due to Higher Production Costs - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 October 2020 / 1,932 Views
With the next-generation of video game consoles around the corner, there is a divide from publishers and developers on the cost of games on the new consoles. Some have decided to launch the next-generation versions of their games for $10 higher at a launch price of $70, while others are keeping their games at $60.
Video games increased from $50 to $60 around 15 years ago when the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles launched.
Take-Two Interactive is one of the publishers that decided to increase their games on the Xbox Series X and S, and PlayStation 5 to $70 and CEO Strauss Zelnick in an interview with Protocol has defended the price hike.
"The bottom line is that we haven't seen a front-line price increase for nearly 15 years, and production costs have gone up 200 to 300%," said Zelnick. "But more to the point since no one really cares what your production costs are, what consumers are able to do with the product has completely changed.
"We deliver a much, much bigger game for $60 or $70 than we delivered for $60 10 years ago. The opportunity to spend money online is completely optional, and it's not a free-to-play title. It's a complete, incredibly robust experience even if you never spend another penny after your initial purchase."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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No they are just greedy bastards.
There's probably room for critique here even without what seem like a baseless accusation. I don't think anyone's claiming making high-profile games has got any cheaper than it was 15 years ago, and the only question is whether other monetization models (such as DLC and microtransactions) have made up for the increase in development costs or if more revenue is needed.
Gamers will vote with their wallets. I myself buy very few games at full price, even The Last of US 2 which was one of my most anticipated games in the last few years I bought for $29.99 from gamefly. Games outside of Nintendo drop in value so quickly, that gamers will buy the games they need right away, and wait for a price drop on the rest.
IPrice conscious gamers will either wait until the games are cheaper, or play them via subscription services.
Then what was the excuse for charging us 60 bucks if they're delivering us a bigger game at 60 and 70 now than they did ten years ago? Wont be buying take two games at all they greedy
Bigger games my ass. They just take chunks out of the game and sell it as DLC leaving you with a 70$ shell.
This coming from the company that publishes evergreen titles like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead....
They should cut the costs of the managers to a minimum, then they can sell the game for 50$ with a big win.
$70 games again, aye? Whelp we use to pay those prices back in the day. With game development getting much more expensive this was only inevitable.
So this means you will be paying more for GTAV the third time around :D
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