Sony Believes PS5 Game Pricing Is Fair, Denies It Considered Charging More

As always, I'll wait for sale with most titles.

Ofc the pricing is fair according to them, as if they would say "Yeah, we are charging way too much for our games"

@get2sammyb I think it’ll depend if it’s a spoiler heavy title (GOW2) versus a lighter game (Sackboy).

I know I’d grumble, but pay that for something like GOW2 but will certainly wait on other titles until they’re on sale!

Yeah I'm not spending $75 for a singleplayer game. There is absolutely no reason why I can't wait 6 months to a year for a more reasonable price.

Lol. What else was JR going to say.

Telegraph reporter to Playstation Boss. Is £70 fair?

Jim ryan: no, in fact its hugely unfair. we just want to bleed our customers dry and line our pockets. Then jump into our vaults full of gold like scrooge mcduck, make gold angels, and laugh at all of those mugs who buy games day 1.

Lol these interviews always make me laugh.

For what its worth, the price probably is reflective of the increase in costs. I get that.

Will it mean i hold off buying games i would have previously bought day 1 and wait for a sale? Sure it does. No way im paying 70 for anything other than the very best titles.

But in return i expect publishers to treat customers with respect. No more nonsense like bethesda placing embargoes on review code until after release. That wont fly anymore im afraid

Who the heck pays 20 quid for a movie ticket?
I already think that the 7€ we pay in Portugal is too much.

I mean games have been steadily increasing in cost here in Canada for years. Even before the ps5 gen.

During the ps4 gen games went from 69.99 to 79.99 and similarly in ps3 gen they went from 59.99 to 69.99.

Now we are at 89.99 plus taxes here which takes us over 100 dollars Canadian for a game.

I guess I am just used to the price going up and me being able to buy fewer games each gen.

@Athrum Welcome to the UK. Surprisingly, cinema chains arn't doing too well here 😉

What annoys me is they've seemingly raised the prices of PS4 games too, cheapest price for Sackboy right now is £51.85.

Where the heck has that price come from?

Fair compared to what? Did Demon Souls cost significantly more to make than Assassin's Creed for example which is freely available for £20 less?

The problem for Sony is continuing with cross gen games so presumably the likes of Horizon can't be £70 but the likes of Ratchet and Clank will be.

It'll be interesting to see how well Demon's Souls does, I know it was top 10 but by all accounts less than a quarter of Spider-Mans sales.

The games are absolutely 100% worth the cost. When you think about how much it costs to go to the cinema or a football match, the entertainment time you get with games is great value.

Am I going to spend that much when, waiting just a few months, the price drops by 50%? lol, hell no. Far too many games to be getting on with to need to buy at release.

I think their long term pricing strategy is more important. Nintendo games are notorious for taking years to get paltry discounts, if any. This means people are more inclined to buy the game at full price, as it's all but guaranteed that it could be quite a while before the game even drops by a quarter of its price.

Then there's Sony. Sure their games are launching at 70$ apiece, but their long-term strategy has shown me that I only need to wait a year at most before I can see discounts of 50% or more. Given this, why would any but the most passionate consumers buy for full price at launch?

Don't really like Ryan's view on things. In fact, i am disappointed with most PS heads as of this year. Hopefully, something will change soon, because the PS brand start to remind me more and more of Sony's movie division. Maybe moving to America was a huge mistake after all.

LOL to the fact that it was bad enough sony having half a game behind a paywall with playstation plus which they increased an extra €10 from €50 to €60 , now on top of that games have increased an extra €20 to €80 in Europe . so in total to get the full experience of a game you have to pay a grand total of €140 ??

The world is about to enter the worlds biggest recession , and if Sony really thinks more people will be buying games at full price they really have lost touch with their consumer base

When you think inflation (the money kind lmbo), $70 today is cheaper than $50 in 2000. So it's not as much as it initially sounds.

If the pricing was consistent I wouldn't complain, but £70 is not $70. They might not see a massive drop off in sales for the States, but you can bet they'll sales drop from the UK and EU... I refuse to pay $90+ so I'll wait for games to appear second hand... or sell them on as soon as I've finished so I can recoup money and reduce sales numbers by letting other people buy my copy second hand.

We are literally in the midst of a world-affecting pandemic that's made people more sensitive in regards to their financial stability and more conscious about trying to circumvent tasks that require a large sum of money and are more cost effective, but yeah sure, Jim Ryan says it's totally ok that now I have to fork over 90 CAD for Demon's Souls

@HotGoomba___Rebrand the problem comes more from currency conversation... for those not in the states we end up paying 30+% more than US customers do even after tax.

@ArcadeHeroes well, hold on a second.

You have a fixed cost component and a variable cost component in there.

It works fine for as long as you have only 1 game.

The moment that jumps to 2, you have to split the cost of fixed over the games you have purchased, and then add it to the cost of that "one game" that you wish to discuss.

At 1 game! 140 "each"
2, 110
3, 100

Etc etc.

Also, the benefit of ps plus are more than what ever is behind the pay wall for being online. You do get monthly free games I think?

I personally do not have Ps+ since I only play certain exclusives that do not require Ps+.

@TheFrenchiestFry @HotGoomba___Rebrand

I think it is more expensive for us in Canada, with tax of 13%

Goes to show how Bloomberg has zero credibility and why showing your sources actually matters. Otherwise, we end up with sorry excuses for journalists writing complete fabrications and video game "journalists" posting them as legit stories.

Can't wait for the next Bloomberg story. I'm sure it will be posted here and the push square staff will once again, defend them.

@SwitchVogel yet if you look at sales, millions still buy them at launch no matter how much they cost. I wait for a few months or even years. My backlog is huge anyway.

@naruball huh

I mean if it is an insider news, do you want the person, who the source is, to be fired for the sake of your need to know who it was?

I am sure they rather keep that job and keep the mouth shut instead, resulting in no "insider news".

Plus this person may only have a relationship with one journalist and wouldn't want other journalist to hound him for more info either.

I mean there are tonnes of reason why a source name wouldn't be leaked.

Hence why you take insider news with a grain or salt.

It is not always 100% accurate, and could be speculative too.

If the cost of the ps5 was £600 then £70 upwards for games would be steep..seeing as the ps5 (very good value for money) is less then £500 then the games are fairly priced..nobody is forcing anybody to buy them and it wont be long before the prices start to fall..how many people will in all honesty buy 2 to 3 games day one? The people that will are the people that can afford them and i'm not one of them and to be honest i think that i will only purchase games that are worthy and are going to have a lot of replay value (demons souls and maybe godfall)..there is no way i will pay over £70 as that just gives developers and publishers the green light to rape wallets..theres always the sales to look forwards to or rich relatives kicking the bucket..

@get2sammyb Still doesn't excuse charging above and beyond for the PS4 versions.

“Yes, yes, I do [consider £70 to be a fair price],” he told the Telegraph. “If you measure the hours of entertainment provided by a video game such as Demon’s Souls compared to any other form of entertainment, I think that's a very straightforward comparison to draw.” Ryan, of course, is alluding to the fact that a game could take anywhere from 20 to 50 hours to complete, where many are willing to spend £20 for a two hour movie ticket.

Maybe I am wrong, but I only remember paying little over half of that to see a movie. Not to mention, For that £10 or so, you are not just getting to watch the film, you are also renting the space to watch the film, the comfy seat you will be sitting on, the big screen and fancy pants speakers, all for the length of time of the film, presumably all prepared for you beforehand by some poor employee who had to clean after the people before you.

A game on the other hand, is just the game. You are not getting a PS5/4 to play the game on, you are not getting the TV to play on. The game itself might be longer, but I would expect that since I am not getting other things instead. Not to mention, although game budgets are increasing, I don't think they regularly exceed film budgets. Comparing entertainment value is not an accurate representation on what the price should be.

Pointless moaning about it, anyone with sense waits a few months as they always rapidly decline in value. Plus often you get an updated game with patches by that point.

Just like David Jaffe said.

People want a game with a bigger budget, to be ps5 next gen only exclusive (not enough consoles yet to buy the game), to have next gen graphics etc... still for $60 and people will still say it ain't worth $60 and they will wait for a sale.

Pay the price that it is due. True next gen games will come at a cost.

Maybe an unpopular opinion but I’m disgusted by the price of games, Sony are one of the richest companies in the world so there is no way they need to charge what they do for PS5 games, all it is is cash grabbing.

@TrolleyProblems No, I would much rather they never reveal their sources and keep coming up with any kind of stories they want for clicks. Much better idea.

They don't have to provide any kind of evidence (even a single document). We should simply believe them, just cause.

They think 70 pounds is fair, but the "higher price" discussed in Bloomberg, as far as I recall, was for US. As stated in the article, 70 points is about 93 dollars, and that is what was rumored, that they considered up to 90 usd price tags.

@troj27 It's not that simple. It's not just Sony who's trying to make a profit, but many other companies that need to do well to survive. All the developers who make AA come to mind. They need to either charge more or force more microtransactions on the hardcore fans.

It seems like a lot but I do see his point: $90.00 for a 30 hour game isn’t preposterous when compared to other entertainment mediums. Without considering 2nd and 3rd runs that’s $3.00/h. I mean, there are people here in Canada buying $5.00 coffees from StarBucks every day...

That’s like saying banks think mortgages are fair. Or universities think tuition fees are fair.

@MS7000 a better comparison would be to look at the cost of a Blu-ray, not a theater ticket.

Yeh, im not paying £70 or more for the basic version of a game, esp one still riddled with mtx and unfinished content, no chance. Methinks Sony are in for a bit of a shock in the coming months, when sales of big games are dropping, along with the "PS5 Storage is fine" stuff, arrogant PS3 Sony have slipped out again, speaking as a lifelong Playstation fan, I hope Xbox whip their bottoms this time round.

@God_of_Nowt I don't think the question is whether or not they should reduce their prices during the pandemic, but if they should have kept their prices the same.

1. UK price is unfair.
2. Mochizuki again and again exposed reporting BS (that all the press eagerly spreads just because why not)

The more expensive it gets to create a game means that higher prices are justified.

Case of point:

How much did it cost to create Grand Theft Auto 5?

@PaperAlien If I had a penny every time Sony said something and it was perceived as "arrogant ps3 Sony is back", I'd buy two houses by now.

I think it’s fair with the new tech and everything and I’m sure costs to make games are rising a extra $10 here in the US isn’t really much nor an issue for me

@TrolleyProblems For Ontario definitely, but I believe it's province-dependant as well so it might not be the same for areas like Quebec or Nova Scotia.

@roe

Avengers sold 3m and still lost money. A lot of triple A games barely get to 3m (Nioh, Persona 5 etc...).

Visceral, driveclub/motostorm studio and deadrising studio were shutdown. I am surprised Bioware has not been shutdown.

Platinum Games almost went bankrupt and I just played Nier Automata and I am glad that did not happen.

Look at Bethesda. Ended being bought. Their games don't sell well. Only fallout and doom sold well. It's the only reason they were up for sell.

Some games make for profit, but others not so much, and they will have to keep up with the better selling games. I know you are an xbox dude. I see you on twitter, but you, as an individual, giving $15 to play like 4 triple A games is not enough. Forget how many subs there are.

You get what you pay for

@get2sammyb sales have not ended with the initial launch window for decades. Only total launch flops ended up not living up to addional presses. It was usually the expectation that titles would make it into greatest hits collections, or plainly keep being lowered in price, for years.

Digital has increased the "shelf life" of less successful titles, though. B titles are now able to also account for long term copy sales, something that was hard to do outside of PC.

@HotGoomba___Rebrand

People in the UK would probably been fine with a $10 increase in their game prices (with a small grumble)
But we are getting a $25 + increase in price.

As the article says were paying almost $93 for a title..........would you be happy to pay that because that substantially higer than $70

At least playstation 1st party titles usually drop price pretty fast, unlike nintendo which still sells launch titles at $60 lol. Although weirdly nintendo games is cheaper in my country, usually cost about only $40-$50. It's playstation games that's actually more expensive compared to usa, for example, demon's souls is $73 in here.

@TheFrenchiestFry I think Quebec is like over 14%?

4 provinces are below 10% I think, including Alberta

@Burntbreadman If that's true, that's ridiculous.

@naruball technically you do not even have to read the article.

Why bothering reading any thing coming from the journalists relying on those sources?

You cannot reasonably expect "insider" sources to be revealed to you so you can have the "insider scoop" and the name of the source.

Your need to know who the source is clouding your thought process on why it is kept secret.

Edit : if I am not mistaken, you have had this conversation on this website less than a month ago with another person.

Here in Belgium it's up to 80 euros for some games lmao. Yeah, no thanks. I'll wait until it goes on sale.

@Athrum i don’t know what cinema he goes to for £20 for one ticket, if you go to vue it’s only £5.99 for any film.

We need a poll to ask site users if they'll pay 70 bucks to have launch games or if they'll wait a month or two for discounts! I'm pretty sure its the latter! What if Ubi / Squeenix / CDPR keep their pricing at 60? Will that make Sony backtrack? Will be interesting to see!

Do think the complaining is a bit ott. Games have always been this sort of price, from paying £60 for Mario All Starts on the Snes to £100 price of Street Fighter 2 back in 1993.
I couldn't resist paying £55 for Battlefield IV on PS4 when it came out as wasn't much else to play. Only played a few hours of it because it was rubbish. Since then you can pick it up for a few quid. Won't make that mistake again!
I reckon this generation won't be as painful either as it'll be easy enough to finish PS4 backlogs or buy cheap PS4 games while waiting for the prices to come down for PS5 because of the bc aspects.

I've been getting most of my games when they are on sale, because in europe we always pay 10+ than the standard price (unless you know a really good retail, in which case you can get very reasonable prices). That being said, it does come at a cost, since i mainly play Single Player games, and no matter how hard i try to avoid spoilers, i will get something spoilled eventually. I still disagree about the development costs argument though and i also disagree with publishers encouraging players that Bigger = Better to justify such costs. You don't need a whole symphony for a soundtrack, nor do you need expensive mo-cap and high paying actors. There are a lot of ways to cut costs is what i'm trying to say here, if that's your argument, and those are a few examples.

@naruball Indeed, a blu-ray is better comparison (£15 for standard blu-ray, £25 for 4K I believe for those curious), but I wanted to use the article's example. =)

In regards to the £70 "is it fair" question Jim is answering, I feel that the real question is "Will everyday people pay £70?" If the answer is no, then I don't understand why they would raise the price and potentially put people off until extremely cheap, than keep it at price people are very clearly willing to pay, even if they could potentially get it cheaper down the line.

I'm sure somebody brought up $80, then all the people with reason said "You're crazy, we're not even going to waste time thinking about that price." Which is close enough to what he said happened.

If there is £20 for movie ticket, than cinemas bankrupt. Don't know where he lives, but £8 is place for complaining about expensive ticket. £20 people spend for live show of mediocre music band....

And other thing is lenght. If you have 10 hour long fun with for example Wolfenstein Old Blood, OR you waste 160 hours in boring Assassin Creed Odyssey just to grind levels to complete it, is not excuse for price.

They must decide if they want players to buy 3 games a year for £70 (£210) or 12 games a year for £40 (£480). Simple math.

Yeah but nah. In the case of Demon Soul's, you could argue that yeah it is a single player AAA game, takes 30+ hours to complete, more to 100% and is a good game.

I could MAYBE accept that attitude if that was true across the board. Few games are long AAA affairs. Many AAA games have an element of microtransactions, season passes, DLC - the lot. Many have different versions at launch that give you more or less.

Then you add into the mix that publisher revenues have been on the up and up because of the above then you realise this ISN'T a case games costing more so they have to charge a bit more but that they want to cut costs and increase profit.

With every new release and hype, the decision is whether splashing out day one, knowing I am paying more is worthwhile. With TLOU2, loved the first game, didn't want it spoiled, I ordered and played day one. Ultimately, I have been lucky to have income that allows me to buy a few release day games a year. With this price rise and the fact that I paid over £120 for two launch games on PS5, I'll just wait. Sackboy looks great but is £60... we all know that in 6 months it will be half that. In a year, it will be under £20. So in my mind, the trade off doesn't work.

I also hate the cost versus time element. Technically, going to the pub with mates is far more costly by time than gaming. More so even than going to the cinema. Doesn't mean the experience isn't worthwhile.

See, the problem is Jim is not really expanding on what he's saying. If $70 is a "fair price" for games....then why does Sony ever run sales on their games? Shadowfall should still be $60, right?

And used game sales should not exist, right? After all nobody should be paying less than that fair $70 for those 50 hours of entertainment right?

And I wouldn't pay $20 for a movie ticket for any reason, ever.... what a waste of money. Of course he works for a film company...

And why would I pay $70 for a digital game when a physical game is $70 and then depreciates when used - one could argue there's more people buying a physical copy used, than new, so only a small portion of the gaming public is paying $70 for any game.

And there we get to the problem - his "fair" is baking in an estimate of the total repurchases of used games, and is based on the distribution costs of physical games, but he's generalizing that price as fair across the board including digital. Give digital games at some sort of kick-back cost, even if just for Plus subscribers and then, perhaps, we can talk about what's fair.

Charging $70 to first buying whales to pay for used sales, and charging digital customers the same prices as customers costing production and distribution costs......if that's what Jim calls fair, Jim can get bent. I bought my Miles. I ended up subsidizing the absurd remaster edition at $70 because monitarily it was the only chance I'd have and didn't want to regret it. I sent them the wrong message - because that purchase choice won't happen again.

I will buy R&C day 1 at full $70. And that's it. Those are the only two games I will ever be purchasing at $70. And this is coming from someone who preordered every single PS4 exclusive (that wasn't horror genre) the first 5 years of the PS4, whether I was going to play them that year or not. Bite me, Jimbo.

@naruball it is simple, they very very rich, nothing can justify their greed, it’s not about survival, Sony could make millions and millions in losses it would barely make a dent, yes there are load of other companies out there as bad if not worse than Sony.

I disagree. But that's none of my business.

Sips whisky

Miles Morales was quite expensive for a game that's only 10 hours long. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was about that length and $10 cheaper.

@God_of_Nowt I don't actually drink 😂I was trying to convey that Kermit the frog meme lol. I think I messed it up, it says "but that's none of my business" I think? I don't know how to post pics on here!

The rare occasions I will have a whisky, its usually apple flavoured JD.

@God_of_Nowt "So no mo-cap for Naughty Dog titles, Santa Monica, Guerilla and many more?"
Yes. I don't care if a character walks or talks or poops realistically, it's still a game, no matter its tone. Also, in what world is Mo-cap cheaper than animating? May take longer to create, sure, but unless they are scamming you or are some of the best, mo-cap is always a more expensive option. Kojima is still getting slack for using hollywood actors and mo-cap instead of cheaper actors and animating on a 3d engine.

Now, the whole, "mediocrity" and "technological achievements" thing you typed, i have no idea what you rumble on about. You seem to imply that this is a natural progress for what exactly? Better graphics? Better horse balls? If the people you cater to are those who want the bigger,better and flashier blockbusters then point given, i'm just saying, that's not progress, that's just a way some devs choose to use their tech. You can make masterpieces without all of that, and the indie market has proved that and that comes from someone who generally doesn't like indies all that much.

lastly, you talk so much about choice, but remember this is an industry when Lootboxes and MX's were a "choise" as well, and that didn't sit well for most gamers, hardcore or casual. It's not about the cost itself, it's about making the customer understand why it costs this much and where his money actually goes.

So if the 30 hour Demon's Souls is worth £70 then why is the 10 - 15 hours (figures from Push Square review) not half the price? What formula are we using to justify the pricing in this way? I'd fear that we end up with a lot of pointless filler in our games if this is how we are going to justify higher costs. Back in my day I must have spent those sorts of hours on Spectrum games that cost me £1.99 but that didn't make them worth a higher price.

£70 is too much for me, particularly without a demo to try before I buy or a digital refund policy like on Steam.

@get2sammyb I usually don’t wait for sales for games I’m dying to play, like Demons Souls, but the $90 Digital deluxe version is hard to pull the trigger on

@RedShirtRod why differentiate single player? If you spend $70+ on a multiplayer game chances are you’ll end up spending MORE on micro transactions and new maps and what not

@God_of_Nowt I can't even pretend to have a right answer, pal. I'm just comparing our prices here in the UK to the US market. We're paying more here than in the US, which seems unfair. I'm OK with Game prices going up, it happens every generation here, but a £20 jump is a little bit too much in one go. I think £60 or £65 would have been a better middle ground.

@naruball Thus the most passionate consumers. There are still millions with the disposable income and the insatiable desire to always buy games at launch, and that's the demographic being targeted by this price hike.

I get why they're doing it, but it seems to me like they're taking advantage of their most loyal fans a bit. They realize that plenty of people will buy a game without really caring what's on the price tag, so they upped the number because they can.

I guess it's important to remember that they're a company whose primary aim is to make as much money as laws and ethics permit. They may go to great lengths for PR that claims they're on 'our side', but the reality is that they exist solely to convince us to buy things from them.

@TheFrenchiestFry sure Buddy let’s just ignore the fact that people are spending FAR MORE on electronics and worthless non essentials during this pandemic then any other time. Take a gander at eBay, people are actually buying 2K consoles!! What recession have you ever heard of where every new piece of tech sells out within minutes...

@dav2612 are you talking about Ubisoft?

@God_of_Nowt that's what I do, I go on shopto and buy their psn wallet top ups, it works out cheaper, they're often discounted.

We need more mid tier games, AA. Not every game needs to be big budget games like RDR2. More things like Sackboy is a good thing.

@2cents The people that are seriously shellling out 2000 ***** dollars for a PS5 are either desperate or literally just don't care where their money goes, and the people scalping them are just as bad. Scalping is just a morally wrong practice altogether and an entirely different story. In fact I'd actually wager the only reason these consoles are selling out within minutes of being made available is because scalpers employ the use of bots to cheat the system and to do stuff like skipping PS Direct queues so they can hoard more consoles efficiently

@troj27 I'm not talking about Sony, but about other companies that actually do need to survive. You can't only look at GTA and say that all games are selling well. Similarly, you can't look at just Sony and think that every video game company is doing well. Plenty are struggling and many had to shut down.

This price hike could help the ones whose games sell 1m or less. As I've mentioned, I, personally, will happily wait until they
cost 1/5th of the current price.

@dav2612 if 70 quid is too much for you (just like it is for me), then you can simply wait for a few months and get if for 35 or less. So:

-Those who can afford it can buy it for whatever price they ask for
-Those who cannot afford it, can wait for a bit until they can afford it.

There. Problem solved.

@God_of_Nowt I was just saying that I don’t know any cinemas charging £20 hahaha, not complaining about the price of games. I have no problem paying £70 for a game, got 3 ps5 games and 2 series x games plus subscriptions to both Xbox and PlayStation haha

@naruball

Agreed and I never said any different. What I am will to pay is personal to me and I'm not suggesting the entire pricing structure should be based on my standards, as nice as that would be. But I do think his justification for the price increase isnt rock solid and if that is the basis being used then there needs to be a wider range of pricing as not all games offer the same hours of entertainment.

I'm curious to see how it pans out. You said yourself that the price hike could help devs whose games don't sell as many which is true but the flip side to that is some people will buy less games than they used to so income could be less.

The problem is that when I buy a ticket to cinema - I will watch that movie to the end. If I bought a game and it's glitchy or doesn't catch me maximum time I waste on it - 15 minutes. How to justify 15 minutes for £70?
You can't return digital glitchy games back to Sony. Mafia 3 was unplayable for two years as it had flickering textures on my PS4 Pro, but I've been forced to keep it for full price. When tried to refund it - my console was blocked for two weeks and I have been forced to buy it back to unlock my console and PSN account.

@God_of_Nowt I am willing to pay hahaha, I don’t really like downloading games, I have terrible internet hahaha.

I could have sworn the headline was about the PS5's storage when I clicked on it, not game pricing. Why the change?

@God_of_Nowt did you manage to get one too buddy?

@God_of_Nowt don't know if I agree, pal. Sackboy is in the high 70s, which is a pretty good score, especially for a mid tier game. I'm enjoying it myself tbh, playing it on the PS4 with my daughter. I think every review dropped a few points because of the lack of multiplayer on launch, so it probably would have scored higher if that was there.

Like I said, I'm OK with a price increase, but to pay much more than the US market and have it jump by £20, which is like $24 top of my head, is a big ask.

And yeah man, shopto is great 😂 best thing about going fully digital with games is those PSN wallet codes!

Strangely enough, MS feel the same:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-11-17-microsoft-suggests-higher-aaa-price-point-is-warranted

Maybe there is something in it. You see when costs rise prices rise.

I won’t pay it of course. I’ll just wait until the price falls or buy second hand. But if the whales willing to pay can subsidise those huge dev costs for me then great.

@God_of_Nowt @SwitchVogel Agree with SwitchVogel quite a bit. The problem with the price hike is it's very visibly exploitative and following a whale model approach. While that may be "good business" it's a bit too on-the-nose as exploitative.

We can argue about stratification of society, etc. etc. But it's a very visible and sudden shift of gaming into a more stratified system of the wealthy whales and the second class peasants. That's a really really ugly very "Chinese mobile industry" style shift in gaming when we're used to being "all in it together" - it's more than just price. It's a shift to split gaming into tiered markets more directly - new big games are luxury goods for a luxury clientele. That's not something gamers are used to hearing...and that's not something that really ought to be accepted. Incomes stagnated long ago. The endless argument of "but inflation" of discretionary goods doesn't tread water for a moment. It only factors for the increasing income gap of about 30% of the population that can afford far more discretionary spending than at any point and history, and another 60% that can afford much less discretionary spending than the past 50 years.

I think the unspoken undertow of the price debate goes beyond just the price itself. And even goes beyond the obvious whale model (which absolutely should not be accepted in its own right.) It speaks to the perception that gaming is now joining many other aspects of the world in telling the masses "this is no longer for you, this is for them - that upper crust of society. We're a premium luxury good that exists for their world. Back to work with you.

Uk here and I don’t give a ***** what Jim Ryan says a £20 increase is ridiculous. It has priced me out of considering buying games day 1, now I’ll wait for a sale or a price drop.

Hey though go around virtue signalling all you want Sony while you put your prices up more and more and plenty of mugs are out there to still support you.

That’s awesome that you got sent one! I’m jealous haha! I agree and that’s good of you to give another person a chance to get one, shame the scalper (or whatever you call them) don’t think like that. Wouldn’t be as much of a shortage if they did!

@2cents you can argue the quality of multiplayers diminishes as time goes on. If I go out and buy GoW right now I can get it for roughly $20 and it will have the exact same playable experience as launch. Multiplayer games change once their communities move on. Waiting a year or more on those games can be a game changer (pun intended)

@naruball It's just the most popular thing to say these days. Sony is like every other company out there. They want to make money but also will push the price up if development costs increase. That's just the way it is. Even MS defended price increases. Consumers can simply wait until the price drops for any game. It's not like they are forced to buy it at the increased price. These very people just love to complain.

I think a £70 game is inclining me to stick to it and explore every nook and cranny. I'll probably jump on board but it will restrict me buying games and less often and social engineer me to play one, trade one, own only one game at a time.

@RayNick Yes they have a lot of new faces now, I like Jack Trenton or is it Treton? He was cool and down to earth. And Kaz Riidge Racer. Lol. To me Phil Spencer is much more likeable then Ryan is.

As for the game prices they are too high, for instance people buy COD at launch but play it all year long and get its value, they buy a Sony single player exclusive for more and play it once and that’s it. As for any reference to a cinema, cinemas do not make any money on ticket sales, up to 90% of the sales go directly to the film distributors and studios. Cinemas literally only exist cause of their food sales hence the high prices. But now many have closed for good. It’s not really the same as Sony take a nice cut from every games sale..

I wouldn't spend £20 on a movie ticket either lol.
Spiderman Miles Morales takes about 6-8 hours to complete, the CoD campaign is like 3-5 hours I hear?
I'm waiting for sales.
Well, that and Cyberpunk, which is still priced normally and will last over a hundred hours I expect.

I hate the argument of "games are long so the price is justified" just no.

It should be priced based on how much it cost to make it. Films are almost never more than £20 to purchase despite often costing the same or more than games to make.

Does Jim Ryan also consider Miles Morales to be fair then? The game is only 10 hours long and costs 50 pounds. By his logic it should've been cheaper no?

If we're going to start judging game price by game length then Games like Miles Morales should be a Tenner

@Cloud39472 Because movies make most of their money via cinema. A game has much more worth. If it's a good multiplayer, you will play it for hundreds of hours.

Miles is $50 tho

Sure but it doesn't cost £70 to get into the cinema either, game companies make massive profits as it is. This is just greed pure and simple now. Not like that's surprising, business is business and all that. I just don't like how they always try to justify it.

Think how much Knack would cost you now.

I love Dark Souls, platinum on each of them and Sekiro, but I will be picking up Demon Souls on eBay for around £20 in a year's time.

So many people are going to give up on it so quickly. This 50-70 hours is more like 3 for noobs who don't know what they are getting into.

That idiot thinks the game prices are good? Is he struggling to pay the morgage on his second home or something sony are like homeless peope begging, you give them a £ or $ and they yell thats not enough! For the players was a good tagline but it's sounding more and more like "for us to keep up our lifestyles that you cant have" lost faith in sony because of this idiot they allow to be a mouth peice for them

When you have millions in the bank £70 isn't much 😂
I've only bought one title for launch (Spiderman) just to fill my time until Cyberpunk 2077

@RedShirtRod Don't just single out single-player titles, it's too much for any title imo

Sure wouldn't be so bad if we actually got finished games instead of constant patching fixing and tweaking when was the last time any one actually put out a finished game

@jrb363 I mentioned this in post 121. Waiting on multiplayer games changes the game itself. You have nothing to lose on waiting on singleplayer games. For multiplayers you have to decide if the price is worth joining the game's community at it's peak period.

For 70 bucks I expect no microtransactions.