Analysts Say Cheaper Games Around The Corner
A new report released this week by the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) shows that game pricing on new games for all three 'next-gen' systems has come down recently. The main reason it gave for this possible trend is that publishers are competing for the mainstream consumer's dollars and that retail stores have limited shelf space. From the report:
The amount of games priced under $59.99 has increased 66% over last year, while the entire quantity of games only increased 44%. In other words, pricing is beginning to come down . . . As the Xbox 360 and the PS3 hardware continue to decline in price, more non-traditional, casual, family, and price sensitive gamers (noting these demographics sometimes overlap) will likely adopt these systems, which will increase the demand for cheaper titles.
Basically they view that the drop in price of the systems will result in consumers who are more price sensitive about the cost of their games buying the newer systems, resulting in the perceived price point for games to drop. At the same time the fact that more games are coming out in this generation of consoles than in the last generation means that there isn't enough retail shelf space for all the games coming out, and so in order to gain a foothold in stores, some games are getting lower price tags to help assure them a spot on the shelf.
A separate analyst, Todd Greenwald said that a drop in the price of games is a big risk for the industry, since it cuts into their profit margins; however, I feel that if this report is correct, than an increase in console sales with a lowering of new game prices shouldn't be too much of a hit since you are regaining your lost margins through the larger volume sold.
All in all, this hopefully means that you, the consumer, should be seeing lower price tags for your new games in 2009, which is a nice thing to hear when the economy is not doing that well.
Video Game Pricing is Coming Down, says EEDAR [GameDaily]
PixelPoet
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 4 February 2009
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: analysts, eedar, price drop, trends
I don't like the idea of $60 games. I rarely bought them at $50 and that extra $10 really just tips it for me. Hell, I remember not buying Half-Life 2 because it thought it was important enough to be $55...
That is all.
Umm... the fact that neither of these reports seem to mention conditions in the global economy (either to explain how they are affecting sales, or to explain why they aren't a factor) make me pretty skeptical of their analyses.