Phil Spencer on 1st-Party Xbox Games Prince Increase: 'We Had Held Off as Long as We Could' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 08 December 2022 / 1,560 Views
Microsoft Gaming CEO in an interview with the Second Request podcast discussed the recent announcement of Microsoft raising the price of its major first-party Xbox games built for Xbox Series X|S from $60 to $70 in 2023.
"The thing that we decided to announce—we haven't raised any prices today because we just wanted to give consumers a heads-up on what's going to come in the next year—is that for our largest triple-A games, that the retail pricing would go from $60 to $70 in US pricing, and we're in no way the first mover in this," said Spencer.
"In fact, other publishers, other platforms have already announced it, and made that move. We had not, we had held off as long as we could, and we still like the fact that our subscription is at the price it's at, our console with our Series S is the lowest-priced current-gen console in the market, and managing the business, the move we decided to make was on the retail pricing of our largest games, and it's really just the cost basis of building those games and ensuring we can run the business in the right way for our customers."
He added, "Pricing is always something that we're conscious of and the impact it has on our customers, and there's multiple things that we can price in our platform.
"There's obviously the price of the consoles themselves, the price of the games, the price of the subscription, and just given our economic realities right now, something had to give in terms of us continuing to run the business with the increased cost basis that we had."
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.
Thanks, VideoGamesChronicle.
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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2 Trillion dollars and still pleading poverty lmao, real great business there Microsoft!
Right, I look forward to hearing the announcements about record profits by these companies who had "no other choice" but to raise the prices of their games. Amazing how these multibillion dollar companies can't seem to afford to sell games at $60 anymore.
I think most of these companies are going to report record profits by virtue of the inflationary economy we are in. There are more dollars in the money supply, so while in absolute terms the profits might be record setting in relative terms they are worth less than they used to be
If it was down only to inflation, they couldn't afford to pay their staff anymore. That would mean record volume, but not record profits or possibly even losses. Record profits mean they get more than inflation.
Well they haven't released any AAA current gen exclusives thus far into the generation. The only game that came out on Series X/S but not on the One was Microsoft Flight Simulator, which was a port of a PC game already sold at $60. With Smart Delivery it would not have made sense to try to charge $10 extra for one version (like Sony did).
Were they the last AAA western publisher at $60? As I recall Ubisoft also held back on the price increase unlike Sony, Activision, EA, 2K, and WB, is Ubisoft also up to $70 now?
Just looked it up, they're moving to 70 dollars. Some stuff like Skull and Bones is 70 on console and 60 on PC, but by all means 70 dollars appears to be the norm for them in the near future.
They hold if off by a year by not releasing first party AAA games indeed. Also gamepass so who cares and Sony might be in the front again by increasing the price in certain regions anyway.
But you didn't have to?.
You could have just been that one company out of the other big ones that continues to give better prices and value, instead of copying the ones that set bad trends and claiming "we had no choice", because you absolutely have the choice.
Well I didn't buy a full priced game in well over 10 years so nothing change for me. I guess great for the 2 years you held up but not buying that you could not continue like this. IMO the lower price point Sony and other handed to you 2 years ago did not turn out to be as much of a major factor in gamers decision making you hoped it would be by holding to past pricing strategy so, after 2 years, you decided to align yourself to the other and also profits from higher margins. Understandable but certainly not unavoidable.
Well, at least the games will be on gamepass.
The same phill spencer :
"Sony Wants To Grow PlayStation By Making Xbox Smaller"
AHAHAHAH
I'm not super upset about 70 dollar games, all things considered. Though if a game essentially has f2p monetization anyways like naw fuck out of here. I would absolutely pay 70 dollars for Plague Tale Requiem, but if you spend a cent on Skull and Bones you're a fool.
If I recall correctly they were the last major AAA developer to avoid the price increase, although I could be wrong.
I broadly disagree that it was necessary for any of these companies to do this and I hold them collectively responsible
Isn't Nintendo still publishing at $60.00?
Hopefully that will still be the case with the Switch successor.
