Ready to race

Sony left Nintendo sputtering in the dust when it announced the price points of first party download-only PlayStation Network titles for PS Vita last week. Most surprising was MotorStorm RC's emergence as the cheapest in the pack at just £4.79.

Don't associate that price with a lack of content, though. MotorStorm RC contains 16 tracks, plucked with equal distribution from the four previous MotorStorm games, eight classes of vehicle with hundreds of visual customisations possible, 64 festival events, 128 time attack leaderboards, four game modes and an in-game store. Quite a bit for the cost of a decent lunch.

You also get a 1080p, 3D-enabled copy for your PlayStation 3 included in the price, and the two share data so that you can carry on your saves, beat challenges and earn trophies wherever you are. Custom soundtracks are supported, too.

We spoke to Evolution Studios' Paul Rustchynsky, director of MotorStorm RC, to discover the reasoning behind such a low price point.

We surprised a lot of people when we announced the price, and the feedback so far has been pretty much universally positive. I had been eager for months to tell everyone about the price, as this was the plan right from the beginning, so it was interesting to watch everyone speculate how much it would cost. Sure, there was the potential perception that we might be offering less content or cutting corners because of the price, but we're extremely confident that the game has a huge amount to offer and will keep most players hooked for tens of hours.

There are many reasons behind our decision to release at this price point. Obviously we needed a sound business case to support this price, but most importantly we just wanted to be as widely accessible to as many people as possible. This is very important to us as MotorStorm RC is an extremely social game and competitive game, and to really push this side of the game we wanted to appeal everyone.

As for the "Buy Once Get Both", which gets you both the PS3 and Vita copies of MotorStorm RC for one price, we never viewed them as two separate games; it's one seamless experience on both that allows you to play MotorStorm RC any time, anywhere!

You can read more about PS Vita's download price points and get in on the discussion in our recent Talking Point. Will you be revving up with MotorStorm RC when Vita launches tomorrow?