UK GTA 6 Buyers Pleasantly Surprised by No PS5 Pre-Order Price Hike

Standard version is normal normal new release price in Ireland too - €79.99.

The tricked out edition is €99.99.

Considering the transfer rate from British pound to the Euro/US dollar is practically pennies (something like $1.14 to £1 last time I checked) - I think you can call this a decent result 🙂

Good on them for standing up to scummy business practices. Even if they’re up against a behemoth.

Unfortunately, the execs will likely see any decrease in physical sales (if that will even be noticeable) as just proof that physical is dying, not that their b/s policy was at fault.

I'll wait until the "physical" release comes down to about £40-50 and the game is stable.

Given the PS5's blu-ray discs are ~100GB of compressed storage, surely most of this game could've been fitted on one disc? I appreciate that every game these days has a day 1 patch but it makes me wonder how broken this game is if they couldn't make the release go gold with a physical disc?

But 70 quid is still over 90usd, yes they've sales tax to add which varies by state, but still. Although minus VAT I think it's about 76/77usd, so maybe on this one it's only the government shafting us. 🙄
Not that I have any interest in this specific title...

so people dont mind £70 games now ?

Maybe they felt sorry for us because we are already being fleeced in all other areas of our lives 😂

@themightyant I do not get this 'code in a box' bollocks. Is it literally a game case with a piece of paper? Cos that, to me, sounds like a complete waste of plastic

Slightly off topic I guess, but that means I spent almost as much on Saros as I would on GTA6 (if I end up buying it), which seems a bit mad. Sony really should have priced Saros lower, maybe £50.

@sanderson72 It's about killing off the significant secondhand market, not storage limitations.

I think people are confusing 'relief' with 'praise'.

It's great it won't be higher than the industry standard for AAA, it was an expensive game that will fuel the associated companies for years. But I'm still relieved it's not more, I'm not happy it's still £70 for digital only, and will be unlikely to drop anytime soon

Why are people complaining about the price? Will you be playing it for more than 70 days, i think so, that's a quid a day, over a year it's less than 20 pence a day. Just to put it into perspective

@themightyant I do ponder how badly are they screwing themselves in markets with rubbish internet.

And I'd imagine that retailers are going to have fun having to tell every single customer that there's no disc (only for some poor, confused parent to go ahead anyways and subsequently still get peeved off).

£70 is not equal to $70 though. If anything, they raised the US price to match the ones we've been saddled with for 6 years. Sony, TakeTwo and Xbox are the ones who shafted us with £70 in the first place.

@themightyant apparently they are releasing the physical copies a week early on the 12th. So you'll be able pre download the same as if you bought it digital.

@themightyant Leaks are easily stopped, launch a physical copy weeks in. Sticking a piece of paper in a plastic case is, well, I guess to hook Granny and Grandpa into grabbing it for little Johnny? And yes, there will be quite a few that pick it up and be shocked that there's no disc, and yes, not everyone has decent, reliable Internet.
Your first point sounds slightly more monopolistic, which raises legal concerns, which Sony have to be pretty close to breaching by now? Having intentionally let my PS+ lapse, finally, it's odd that the CMA aren't all over them, I'm sure someone smarter than me can put an argument together about how the ability to play online is an integral part of gaming.

I had assumed $80 (before tax) would translate to £80 (tax included) over here, so this is a pleasant surprise.
Still not buying Day 1 though, so my relief is limited to GTA not setting a new AAA pricing norm when it comes to other games.
Part of me wonders if they've crunched the numbers and figured out how much poorer the average UK resident is than the average US resident (on average, UK residents are ~25-30% poorer) and region-priced accordingly.

For what should be super AAA up there with the top best games and plays for many hours £70 is a good price to me.

I would rather pay £70 for hopefully game perfection at its highest level than £60 or £50 for AAA at say above average and dam good.

Whoop-dee-doo. They're still locking single player content for an extra £20 and releasing a non physical version.

Pretty horrible industry practices on all fronts.

@Haruki_NLI
I don't think you are accounting for VAT.
A £70 game only nets the supplier £58 (rounded).

@sanderson72 I'm pretty sure they skipped on physical disc with the game data on it to avoid the game leaking before the release date, which happens often does for these big games with physical releases
I'm really hoping they do a proper physical release later

@StrickenBiged Where does your 25% poorer statistics come from? The institute of making it up as I go along?

The average Brit isn't 25-30% poorer than the average American once you account for healthcare, education costs, pensions, annual leave and other social transfers. Using raw GDP-per-capita figures as a representative for disposable income is not how it works.

EU is €80 too, so same as others games. They only raised the price in the US after 6 years of paying less, but $80 is still cheaper as €80/£70.

@themightyant @Pat_trick
I know and agree comparing GDP per capita obviously isn’t perfect, but it’s not “made up” either. It’s one of the most commonly used proxy for comparing purchasing power between countries.
You’re right that once you factor in healthcare, education, and transfers the picture gets more nuanced, but even then most comparisons still show the UK having lower disposable income on average. Yes, one reason Americans are more productive is they work more and have a lower social safety-net, their energy is cheap, they have wider inequality, etc, etc. We could get into it at an econ symposium if we wanted.
Either way, the broader point I was trying to make still stands: this regional pricing for GTA6 clearly isn’t just a straight currency conversion, and T2 appears to bee factoring in differences in what markets will bear.

If GTA 6 is £70, this only makes Mario Kart World's pricing look even more scummy

@trev666 The standard for triple A is £70. It's not new.

@sanderson72 it's rockstar. It won't be broken, it'll be practically flawless day one

For anyone saying there's no disc to stop leaks, they could have just had a day one update where the game couldn't be played without it.

@Rich33 That's nice. However I, the customer, determine what is or isn't a price I am willing to pay for a good or service.

If I see the game costs me, the customer, the one paying, £70, but the same individual in another country $70, I am not a happy chap when the exchange doesn't equal out close enough.

Bought the Ultimate Edition - a little bit shady locking some aspects of the game behind a £20 upgrade, but at least we get to use the cosmetics, unlike 007 first light which advertised all these cool skins you couldn't use in the base game.

Let's face it, only rockstar could get away with this, because we know they're a world class studio and lord help any other studio that tries this. Glad it's the price it is in the uk. I was very prepared for a £100 price tag

Rockstar looking after its own 😂👊

@Andy22385 "it's Rockstar, it won't be broken".

Not sure where this idea comes from of Rockstar releasing games in a good state?

We could arguably give GTA IV and V a pass for running like a three legged dog on the 360-gen consoles. That's me being generous as I don't like developers releasing games designed to run on hardware that doesn't exist yet.

They definitely get no pass for how badly it ran and stuttered on PS4 at launch though, and they released patches that actually made it worse over the following months. It took about as long as Witcher 3 did to fix.

Don't even mention the PC version of GTA IV. That was a calamity.

That's just the physical performance.

They are also notorious for having buggy story missions where e.g. scripted events don't trigger. Lost count of how many times I had to restart or Google a workaround to get something to trigger etc.

@Throb Well, let’s make it $200 then. I mean, you’re still paying a pittance for each day of play! Rockstar are truly benevolent, allowing us to play so much for this download-only game, aren’t they?

I’ll quickly point out that per an e-mail from Rockstar support has given the advice that physical discs will come a month or so after launch… wait if you want physical

Games should cost more anyway, we’ve been coasting for too long. A two hour trip to the cinema costs the best part of £20. If GTA 5 cost £150 back then, it would still have been worth it for a hundred, two hundred hours played. Sonic the Hedgehog cost my mum £40 in 1991 (Toy’R’Us said RRP £45 but it was in a deal) and prices for games never really kept up.

@Haruki_NLI
Of course you are welcome to not purchase any product if you don't agree with the price - and I never mentioned anything even related to that.

But to complain about a UK price being high, compared to other countries, applying exchange rates, but completely ignoring VAT and local taxes, is factually wrong and completely misrepresentative. Particularly if you are 'calling out' a worldwide supplier.
You might as well ignore exchange rates as well and apply the same argument.

@TheJoeYouKnow Mario Kart World costs £67 so is actually cheaper than GTA (digitally at least, which is currently the only way to buy GTA anyway).

Looking after the home fans. Kinda like Sony selling cut price consoles for Japan.

@Dogbreath GTA V ran great I played it day one. Didn't run into any bugs personally. Online was buggy, but that's different. Same with RDR2. I played GTA 4 day one but it's 20 years ago so I can't really remember. Given it scored 98/100 and the second highest score of all time. I can't see that a mess either? For massive open worlds they're very stable day one

I don't get why UK gamers are so excited. In US dollars that £70 is $92. That's their normal price for all games?! If $92 was the new normal here I dunno if I'd be buying games.

In Canada. The standard edition is $109.99 and the ultimate edition is $139.99. it's about $20 more CAD then other AAA released games.

@illegalmonkey We're happy because whilst we are indeed getting shafted, we have been getting shafted with the £70 AAA price for some time and we're happy that it hasn't gone up even more after all the rumours and leaks made it sound likely that GTA would cost more than what has been the standard for a while now.

They may make great games, but R* isn’t too good at marketing strategy. With the highest prices on gas, food and housing in the USA, charging more for their game than any other seems downright absurd.

@Andy22385 GTA IV and V were dropping down near 20fps on the 360/PS3 generation.

I bought GTA IV on 360 at launch in 2008, played a few hours, and quit after some driving mission (possibly on a bike?) that I found utterly unplayable. I never played it again on console, and bought and finished it on PC in 2012.

I bought GTA V on PS3 at launch, did the first few Franklin car dealership missions and again quit in disgust. I waited and played it on PC at launch, but that had problems so I finally bought and finished it on PS4.

When GTA V launched on PS4 it was mostly fine, however they started releasing patches that as I recall were something to do with the online game but negatively affected the campaign.

Especially late game, it was stuttering like mad going through intersections. Down to the low 20's for a few seconds when you most needed it to be smooth. That severely hampered the last couple of hours of story for me.

The forum posts from that era are still out there. I just did a quick Google search, 30 seconds research and found loads of threads from back in the day.

@sanderson72 That isn't the reason. What this is, is Rockstar eliminating the chance that someone gets the game 3 weeks early and puts the whole thing on youtube. It is also a way for them to cut out the second hand market entirely. Want to pick up GTA 6 in 3 years time? well now you cant go to the second hand store and grab a used copy.

We don't need to make up stories about this being buggy before anyone has seen the game at all. The internet has enough grifters already. It is always about money. Always

Cries in Canadian after seeing it is $110 cad for the base game and $140 for the ultimate edition

"Only" £70.

And not even a disc.

I mean, I'm technically £10 in pocket now. That's just Math. Might as well get the ultimate edition. Even if it is a scummy thing to pay wall whole bloody shops from people. They're too big, now. There's no point fighting them. Just do it. Join us. One of us! One of us! One of us!

control resonant is only 49.99 in store was surprised it was so cheap

£69.99 for a PS Store one or £69.99 for a code in a box jeez imma wait till it ends up in physical form for £19.99 it's not like a sports title that needs updating every year.

Wait, sorry I am confused?! 😅 Why are UK gamers happy with the price again? That literally translated to 81EUR now that I check ?! BTW Wolverine is 79.99EUR. So they are happy they are not asked to pay even more more as the current indstry standart for AAA? Is this really the distopian state of modern gaming mentality?! (Do not mean to rain on anyone's parade or "troll", I am genuinely baffled...)

@NitrousX Because they usually just swap the $ for a £ sign

@trev666 they have been £70 for the last 7 years people have moved on. This is the same price i paid for street fighter 2 in 1992 i would say 70 for gta6 is a bargin

@NitrousX because usually they dont convert it 70 dollars would also be 70 pounds so we end up paying more currently 70 dollars equals 52.99

$80 should be £60.57