Xbox First-Party Game Pricing to be Announced 'In Due Time' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 December 2020 / 2,395 Views
The prices of games for the next-generation consoles have gone up for many publishers for the first time in 15 years from $60 to $70. However, not everyone has increased the prices of their games.
Microsoft has yet to take a stance on the price of first-party games on the Xbox Series X and S. Xbox CFO Tim Stuart in an interview with Jefferies Interactive Entertainment conference (and transcribed bySeeking Alpha) says Microsoft will not many any announcements regarding first-party pricing just yet. But an announcement will happen "in due time."
"I think we're not making specific announcements on first-party pricing yet," said Stuart. "So we'll do that sort of in due time.
"But again, if -- I think if publishers can find a price point that works for their audience, defines a price point that works for the maximization of, I'll say users and revenue, because you want to drive engagement. I talk about engagement equals currency a lot.
"Engagement is the ability for you to drive wholesale monetization, to drive activation of your content, to drive sort of hours in your service. Because these games are becoming, as we all know, they're becoming ecosystems under their own -- or onto their own. Call of Duty wants to keep a Call of Duty player and monetize them down the road. FIFA wants to keep a FIFA player in their ecosystem and monetize down the road.
"So I think we'll look at publishers to make the right decision for their content. If they can drive a premium price point or a higher price point, I think that's warranted. And I'd say, your point is exactly right. Prices have not gone up in -- what, for a couple of generations now, so it's not unheard of to see things like this going on.
"And to the point earlier, content creation costs go up. And these publishers and content creators, including ourselves, want to make sure you're driving the right gross margin profiles, the right earnings profiles of what it takes to build these new, awesome, amazing games. And you want to make sure you have a good top line to support that."
We do know Take-Two, Activision, Gearbox, and Sony have raised the price of at least some of their games on the next-generation consoles to $70, while Ubisoft at least for fall 2020 will not raise the price of their games.
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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Since they haven't really released first party titles for gen 9 they don't need to announce any prices... Hey sales2099 demand some transparency from him.
"Engagement is the ability for you to drive wholesale monetization, to drive activation of your content, to drive sort of hours in your service. Because these games are becoming, as we all know, they're becoming ecosystems under their own -- or onto their own. Call of Duty wants to keep a Call of Duty player and monetize them down the road. FIFA wants to keep a FIFA player in their ecosystem and monetize down the road." - Holy fuck, this reads as MS being all for making their games into MTX infested GaaS garbage. I bet Halo Infinite will be $70, and have Microtransactions to boot. Meanwhile games like Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, and Days Gone get massive free updates.
You're probably right. Especially with the news that multiplayer would most likely be separate from the campaign and be free to play. Damn shame but MS has pulled this before with Halo Wars 2, Forza Motorsport 7, and more. Thought with their most recent releases they wouldn't be like that, but proving us wrong :(
Sony play the game differently. Instead of offering MTX and loot boxes, they just cut out a massive feature in most of there games which is the multiplayer.
Games use to offer both and were not $70. Today we get 20 hour campaigns and that's about it.
Multiplayer doesn't take much effort to make. It's mostly an asset flip, using single player assets. Sony's single player games are 50+ hours long for completionists. They are only 20 hours long if you make a beeline for the main story, and skip all optional sidequests.
Asset flips or not, its content in games that add replay value. Also completionist are not the norm. You can play any game for 100s of hours. The varity if contents and value is my point. Example: You can finish UC4 in 12 to 14 hours with its contents. Again what are we getting as consumers for the extra $10? Demon Souls worthy of a $70 price tag? Lets be honest here.
what 1st party games ? but i will stick with gamepass
Game prices dont need to rise. Raising prices is all for greed.
Unfortunately lol there's a LOT of first party games currently in development like Avowed, Fable, whatever The Initiative is working on, Psychonauts 2, Hellblade 2, next Forza Motorsport, and of course Halo. Plus whatever unannounced games. But these games are a long way off lol. Xbox will be in a much better position, first party wise, within the next couple of years. Still way too long though
