Xbox First-Party Games Built for Xbox Series X|S Price Going Up to $70 in 2023 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 05 December 2022 / 2,079 Views
Microsoft announced it is raising the price of its major first-party Xbox games built for Xbox Series X|S from $60 to $70 in 2023.
Forza Motorsport, Redfall, and Starfield will cost $69.99 when they launch next year. Regional pricing may differ, however, no specific prices were given for other countries.
"This price reflects the content, scale, and technical complexity of these titles," a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN. "As with all games developed by our teams at Xbox, they will also be available with Game Pass the same day they launch."
Microsoft Gaming CEO in October did state that at some point in the future Xbox would need to increase prices.
We've held price on our console, we've held price on games for us and our subscription. I don't think we'll be able to do that forever," said Spencer at the time. "I do think at some point we'll have to raise some prices on certain things.
"But going into this holiday we thought it was important to maintain the prices that we have, because we think consumers right now are more uncertain than they have been in a long time and I want our medium of video games to be something they find attractive."
Other video game companies have already raised prices of games to $70, including Sony's PlayStation, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, and others.
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I expected it eventually but.... BOO!!!
I don't spend $60 unless it's Nintendo or a niche Atlus/NISA/other RPG title, and most of the latter are less than $60.
And the only reason you do that for Nintendo is because well there is little alternative even if you wait a lot, otherwise you would pay 60 only for the titles that you are really anticipating a lot to play day one. On PS I only buy day one very little titles (and usually have been getting 15-20% discount on pre-order).
Dont forget, you are paying more for discounts than you would have before. 20% off $70 = $56 20% off $60 = $48. Everyone loses with these price hikes unless they are a religious PS+/GP user.
That's the way to go, I only pay full price for japanese games, western can wait until they are on sale for less than 10 dollars.
I'm fully expecting for Nintendo to make the jump to $70 once they launch their next system.
That is very much likely.
I agree with this as well. If Microsoft and Sony have done it. Nintendo likely will as well.
So why they are increasing if there is no loss or gain?
As it will help increase the number of gamepass subscribers. Those who don't want to pay for those high prices will get gamepass. But for those who solely use gamepass and not buy physical won't be affected by the increase in first party price
Even if GP doubles its price, its still great value. But in saying that, fingers crossed they get the same backlash like they did with trying to increase the Live price.
Since Microsoft waited over two years to make this price change, I doubt they'll get much blowback. They even released AA and AAA titles such as Deathloop, Halo Infinite, and Forza Horizon 5 at $60, so I think most people will see them as really having tried to hold the line on the price.
That said... if Starfield launches as a buggy mess (ala Fallout New Vega) and costs $70 for said buggy mess, then people will be pissed, LOL.
Unfortunately people dont care for buggy messes as games will get fixed. Some of the most played games are buggy and still sell to an extreme. Just look at Ark.
Yeah, true sadly.
Pro tip, no game is $70 when you wait for price cuts or use Gamepass.
Further pro-tip... don't EVER buy a game on Day 1. Day 1 purchasers pay the most, and are rewarded by the worst possible game (buggy, incomplete).
Always use Game Pass (et al) for newer games, and only ever buy a game years later on sale, or as part of a "Game of the Year" or "Complete" edition!
Prodominantly a ploy for coercing more people into transition to GamePass, I would assume.
Anchoring is also a very well know tactic in sales. Small for 5 Medium for 6 and Large for 7, makes you forget 5 for the small is already absurd by making you think for only 2 more I get large so you go to it.
Somewhere out there, Adam Orth and Don Mattrick are laughing their balls off, saying "we told you so."
Game development, especially bigger games is more expensive than ever. If we want our industry to be sustainable, game prices are going to have to go up. Bang for your buck, the entertainment you get for values of games is still amazing compared to many other entertainment mediums.
Although, a note, $70 will get you 3 and a half skins in Overwatch 2. :P
How come the movie business stays stable when movies continue to cost more and more to make?
Movie tickets used to be £5, now they are £10.
Disk prices remain the same.
Generally DVDs are cheaper, blurays are a bit more but less people buy them (due to streaming services), more niche they become, therefore producing them becomes a niche and therefore costs remain high. Generally prices of technology go down over time due to invention of new technology. If blurays have stayed the same cost, in a sense that's an increase in price.
This said, disc sales are usually there to 'top off' the box office revenue. Most film that don't make a profit at the box office are considered a loss.
Yes but if i can still buy a 2022 movie on DvD for the same price 10 years ago, why are we accepting a $10 price hike for games?
2 different things. Disc sales, both DVD and Bluray do not compare to box office revenue for big films.
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avengers-Endgame-(2019)#tab=summary
This is the biggest film of all time, it has apparently $100mil from hard sales. This obviously does not include rentals, digital sales or money made from streaming services.
However, in the gaming industry, we don't have a 'cinema' anymore, arcades are dead. So there isn't a 'giant first release' for games that cinema is to films. They just release.
Production costs of games have gone up, why should games remain the same cost when it's more expensive than ever to make games?
Now do I like it? No,then I don't usually buy games full cost but I do understand why.
Making movies has also increased in price.
You know what else has increased? MTs, Season Passes, Lootboxes, DLC, unfinished games and games cut into parts. Soooo why are we paying more?
A 2022 BluRay still costs the same where as a 2022 video game costs $10 more including all the extra bells and whistles to drain more coin out of the consumer. Movies dont have those tactics yet manage to maintain the same prices yet gaming companies are literally earning billions in profit even at $60.
Yes, and box office costs have gone up to account for that.
You are focusing too much on a physical single purchase than the revenue made overall by the movie. A single DVD or bluray sale is equivalent to a DLC or expansion in terms of gaming. the main 'sale' is the game like the main sales for a film is the cinema ticket purchase.
I cannot explain microstransactions or loot boxes though. That stuff is just greed by publishers in my view but how much of that trickles down to the developer really? I'm not sure it's much. But that is the state of the industry.
The key is balance. $60-70 games should not have any of the crap above. I'd excuse it for $30-40 but F2P games are filled with it and some of it is outrageously priced. Sadly, some publishers don't see it like that and are more than happy to not only add a premium price for purchase but premium for in game content too.
In an ideal world, we'd only have to purchase games and like 20 or more years ago, we'd get all the content in that game. But at the same time, Crash Bandicoot 1 was made by 10 people. Crash 4 was made by a studio with 180.
I am not doubting the extra costs required to make games today however we need to look past that. Both Sony and Xbox are earning billions in profits every year off their gaming devisions. This price hike isnt to make up the extra costs of games, its to please investors who just want to milk more money out of consumers to profit even more. They can easily afford to sell games at $60 and still profit billions but that just isnt enough for the suits
In nz standard tickets use to cost min 8 to 10nzd. Imax was 17 nzd. Now standard ticketz are 19nzd and imax is 28 50 nzd.
What are the disk and digital prices for buying these movies 10 years ago and today?
This movie ticket comparison is not right. Paying to see a movie is no different to renting not buying
Before moving to nz 10 years and counting, I was in Malaysia. In Malaysia we have pirated movies including blu Ray. They range from ringgit 2 to ringgit 8.. On xbox when I had 360, movie digital prices for rental and owning hasn't changed much. Not that I have noticed. I am the wrong person to ask for physicsl copies prices in nz 10 years ago.
However now blu Ray ranges from 20 bucks to 50nzd depending on how jew it is or whether its 4k. Dvd today is 19.95 nzd to 25nxd from the last time I saw then. I don't buy dvds anymore. Digital prices can range from 6nzd up to 50nzd to buy or rent
Right, their isnt much difference between buying movies now and before where as games, not only have they increased, they are also making more money than ever before. They easily counter movie ticket prices. We ignore MTs, Lootboxes, DLC and Season Passes to believe that games deserve to go up in price when infact, these corps are laughing to the bank yearly.
Not for movies when u buy digital or physical. Its mainly at the cinemas that has increased. You are right, games have increased substantially now that we have dlc attached to them. 70usd means that in nz it will be closer to 130 nzd for games min which is alot. However we are lucky due to gamepass
Only affects day 1. After that you get rapid price cuts anyway.
Plus over here, at-least in Aus, many stores run promotions/discounts on games often.
Dunno about things there, but here for 1st party Sony titles I have been getting up to 20% off on pre-order (MS is probably similar). GoW:R I got 26% for pre-order with free shipping.
What an absolute disaster of a generation and people actually defend these companies profiting billions on a yearly basis.. thats right PROFITING.
so what? thats why they are in business!
Taking advantage of customers is bad buisness. Except for them.
every seen the profits at Apple? iPhone?
I avoid Apple products.
me too
Well at least i use Gamepass and game on PC and never buy day 1 anyways.
GamePass wins again
So you're assuming they won't increase the price of gamepass to make up for any new users that are thinking "GamePass wins Again"?
It doesn't matter. Even when the inevitable price increase of Game Pass happens, it will always be cheaper than buying the games and we all know that's what MS wants is for Game Pass to be their primary source of revenue. I've played about $500 worth of games this year and I only had to spend $130. That's for games I would have otherwise never played. I still do buy games for the ones that I want to outright buy.
But as long as buying games will always be an option, doesn't bother me.
If it is for games you wouldn't otherwise have played then you expend 130 that you wouldn't expend instead of save 370 =p
Subs are not cheaper, it's continuous. Statistical fact games are cheaper buy outright, one and done.
Its no different to renting games in the past. Not everyone wants to buy and horde games. Plenty just want to play it and move on. Its also alot easier for a parent to pay $10 a month than $70 for 1 game that might have 1 playthrough. Subs are a much cheaper entry short term and much easier sustainable.
If the person is worried about one and done they may loan, trade or sell back so it wouldn't be 70 anyway.
Trading you lose 70% of value of what you paid for. $10 a month for 100+ games is easily enough to satisfy a family.
Everyone knows the price will go up. It will still be insane value.
GamePass wins again.
Well if they don't release any new game, that's easy
I feel like 2023 will be the true start of this generation.
Especially for Xbox with Starfield, Redfall, and Forza Motorsport in the first half of the year. While many PS5 games have also been released on PS4, Sony has had a good lineup of 1st-party games this year.
For sure! But I can’t say there’s been a title that has truly felt “next-gen” so I’m really looking forward to what 2023 has in store!
Can’t wait to see what a next-gen open world Bethesda RPG will look like!
Starfield has been at the top of my most anticipated games for a long time.
I'm happy we got the site back up for everyone.
Thank you and the entire dev team to get everything back up and running :)
It's mainly on the dev team for getting it back up and adding new security measures. Really need to thank Jlauro and Bandorr as well.
I'd say flight simulator is the only one that's really wowed me so far
Lol sure...
If we are waiting three years for Xbox to catch up, why don't we wait a little more for the switch 2 to catch up?
Another reason to keep using Game Pass.
Step 1) Move everyone to game pass
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Profit.
You don't know what step 2 is? It's an easy one.
Tell that to the underpants gnomes in south park.
Underpants gnomes will be the least of our worries.
Gamepass for the win
Hard xbox stan taking the redpill, at least they have gamepass.
Wow, so greedy and anti-consumer of Microsoft and Phil Spencer! For the Payers! That's how it's done right?
I think you're mixed up with Sony's model lol. Game Pass is still there for the $70 games and console prices went down......tell me, what kind of pricing does Sony have? Even their own subscription service is more expensive than Game Pass lol
No it isn't. £100 a year PS+ Ultimate vs GamePass which is £120 with Gold.
I was referring to the monthly cost. There isn't an outright annual subscription for Game Pass Ultimate, which there should be. As it stands Game Pass Ultimate is $15/month whereas PS+ Premium is $18/month.
I just use PC Game Pass for $10/month though, so it's still cheap.
Right, because the monthly sub is what the majority of people use for those services? Talk about moving the goal posts. If the situation were reversed, you would likely say Gamepass is cheaper annually. Microsoft is raising the prices of their services. This is just the beginning as noted by Spencer. You're likely going to see price hikes on their consoles and Gamepass in 2023, especially if the Activision deal goes through. Those are the facts whether you like them or not. This is not the echo chamber of the Empire Thread.
All I know is, I'm spending less money than what Sony offers in every category of gaming business models if you want to look at facts ;)
And that's something no one can deny. Even Sony diehards. But hey, it's your money. You may have better financials than I do to spend as much as you want.
Why would MS raise the price of consoles? Because Sony did it. Not exactly a valid reason. If anything, Xbox will keep prices the same to look more attractive. Software is what makes money, not hardware.
It doesn't really matter it Game Pass cost a bit more annually that PS+, it's still the better value by a long shot.
Owww Sony, how greedy you are.
Werent you defending the price hike from Sony?
You mean explaining their reasons for doing it? I don't remember approving or being pleased by it.
Explaining reasons is a form of defending. Especially if your notes are from the brand that has risen the price.
It's nice to see prices going up, at time when interest rates are rising, fuel , electricity, and evey other god dam thing that's being sold, to account for other prices increases just so they keep their profit margins instead of making life a little easier for the non rich.
This was me when Sony did the same thing but worse. At least that they ripped the bandaid off early on. Well, except the console price increase.
At least you’re a game pass subscriber!
The way MS has been handling their PR messaging, I kinda doubt they'd put all their price increase announcements out at the same time. I get the feeling this isn't the only increase we'll be seeing.
Gamepass and console price increases will come , they will go slowly.
Game Pass, Sure, eventually. Console price increase? I highly doubt it.
I don't see a benefit to them increasing the price of consoles. Gamepass will increase after they have shifted enough people from physical copies.
"they will go slowly" sure but you can go so slow that an increase isn't an actual increase.
If Xbox live cost is a worthwhile example, (and by all mean it is the only relatable example we have from MS) GamePass price increase will be so slow it won't even raise to the effect of compounded inflation. If we take a inflation rate of only 2% and also take into account GP was release in 2017 then the equivalent value of today should already be $11.02. So MS can already manage a $1 increase and still be at parity cost wise compared to when it was released. Meanwhile the value GamePass provided is many time that of what it was in 2017.
So here how I view (as a GP consumer) a potential increase in GP pricing (only valid for 2023)
$0 - MS is a beast - Possible as long as they focus on growing GamePass
$1 - GP is still a steal - Possible if MS switch mentality from full throttle on growth to sustain and growth
$2 - Still great deal for the value it provide - Possible if MS want to increase profit margins slightly but will kind of be strange for the same reason $0 and $1 are a possibility.
$3 - OK - Possible but unlikely as it will impact growth possibility significantly.
$4+ - MS you greedy MF - don't think it is a possibility and would unsubscribe if it turns out to be the case.
Haven't GP already suffered an increase even without inflation hike and before the Bethesda purchase?
No, $9.99 was it's cost at release https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2017/05/24/xbox-game-pass-available-june-1/
They did release a higher cost/tier in Ultimate though.
Gotcha. Releasing higher tier shouldn't be a problem or considered an increase if the value and offerings of the original tier wasn't affected.
Now that I think about it and to be completely fair, they did increase the price for GamePass PC from it's introductory beta $4.99 to the same $9.99 of Xbox GamePass in september 2020. But MS did state prior to this that the $4.99 was a limited time price and Ultimate pricing (which include gamepass PC) remained unchanged with this increase. It's probably what you did remenber.
Promotional prices is just that limited in nature, if the original one in Xbox haven't increased and PC gone to the real price after promotion that is no issue at all. Just someone in bad faith would say MS increased the price if the 1 USD deal stop being offered.
