Ok this is really starting to **** me off. (Next Gen Games Vs Old Gen Games Rant)

[Deleted]

There are couple of reasons for this:

- Porting over the game to the new platform took time and effort away from the development team, therefor warrants the increase in price.
- Retailers feel as if they can get away by it by putting the title under the tag of a new release, since it is new for the particular platform, therefor sell it at the price of a regular new release (new games generally cost around 70 USD or 60 Euros), while the price of the title on the older platform has been out for a while, and thus will naturally have a discounted price.


It's not because it is "Look guys, it has a shinier coat of paint", optimizing for a system takes time and effort. Time is money in the industry.
Also please be aware that this might not be due the developers or publishers either. It might be due the retailers simply setting at the price of a new release.
Especially since you're linking pages from the Gamestop website, which we all known is a fucking parasite on the game industry, constantly extorting publishers for exclusive deals, with threatening not to shelve their game if they do not comply.

Also, I'm not sure who Diablo works on consoles. But given Reaper of Souls is at the same price on PS3 and 360 as it's PC counterpart, it might be that those version require the base game as well. Meaning, they're an expansion, rather than a full game.
That while the PS4 and Xbone versions might standalone products and come included with the Base game as well, altho I'm not entirely certain on this (since the base game was never released for those systems, but has been for the older consoles)

[Espe]

It has little to nothing to do with the cost related to the generation gap. Pricing has next to nothing to do with development, and is owned completely by the Publishing group of just about every major publisher. Development cost is baked into a variety of different rates (from coding, to art, to animation, to QA, etc...) that is *usually* kept separate. At the end of the day the cost difference between previous and current gen has nothing to do with that.

It's mostly about perception of value. The Publishing group wants to have a perceived value for their software. Current gen is "better" than last gen, therefore they attach a premium price tag to the current gen version, and a lower price tag on the previous gen version. Hardware manufacturers then bake in incentives to the publishers as well to continue this, as they want to push out more new consoles. A combination of things like discounts to publishers, prefernetial placement on their decks, and even faster turn around times to get titles certified mean that publishers are well rewarded to play ball here.

It's considered a part of the cost of being an early adopter of a new platform. It won't last forever, but for a while after a new gen launch, it's the sort of thing that consumers have had to deal with.

Just wanted to thank you for this insightful post that appears to have been ignored.

[Dhrizzle]

Sadly, it probably comes down to "Well, the new consoles are the latest and greatest so therefore we should charge more because, well, newer".

It's a piss poor excuse. But these are huge corporations we're talking about here. In the end, they just want more money from you.

It's the most basic element of capitalism, you price your product at the point where the demand curve states it will make the most money. It's not a company's aim to get the most money out of you personally, if halving the price would triple their profits they'd do it.

[NordWitcher]

As a gamer I've learnt a valuable lesson. Never be the one to run to the lines at the launch of a game. Always take your time and learn to spread out your purchases. Remember last year so many games were $60 a few weeks before Black Friday. Two weeks later on Black Friday the prices of these same games were slashed by almost 50%.

Now this is going to happen this year as well with so many games releasing in the month of October and early November. Sometimes I'll hold of on a purchase for a few months down the line cause I currently have a massive backlog which keeps me pretty occupied. Even sites like Amazon have these same games on flash sales for almost 40-50% off only a couple months after launch. There are very few games I'll pick up Day 1. In the last 3-4 years I've only picked up MW2, MW3, Skyrim and GTA 5 the day the game launched and the World of Warcraft expansions when I played the game.

I have friends that go out to buy a couple new games at the same time and they've yet to even open the packaging after a month and sometimes even two by which the game has been on sale by some retailer. I've done the same mistake a few times early on which is why I never buy a game I know I'll never play immediately.

But at the same time I only see a select few games that are priced at $69.99. There are some games that are still priced at $59.99 so not sure how that works really.

[Zephyr Storm]

It's the most basic element of capitalism, you price your product at the point where the demand curve states it will make the most money. It's not a company's aim to get the most money out of you personally, if halving the price would triple their profits they'd do it.

You said basically what I said, just went about it in a different manner.

Bottom line: They do it to increase their profit.

[bbr]

They sell the consoles as a loss of price compared to what it costs to make them, they sell the games to make a profit.

Give it time - or get it tweaked so you can use copied games.

[endersblade]

That is why I don't play consoles and usually stick to MMOs or F2P games. The prices keep going up and up and up to the point I can't justify buying the games unless they are sale. Even my 3ds is better in terms of price. Its games are at a solid 40$ and they don't have any DLC I have to pay for. The prices in general for consoles bug me. However, I can see your point. That being said, I would suspect that they have to do a bit more work on a game that is going to a ps4 rather then the ps3 since it has to run at higher graphics with no lag.

This is why I buy almost exclusively on steam. Steam has a metric butt load of indie games for cheap, that are actually damned good. And for the mainstream games, they have, what, four huge sales a year? One for each season? I used to be console exclusive and only dabbled in PC because the games cost about the same, but I didn't have to upgrade my consoles every year or so to run the new games. But then the prices started to deviate so much that I just stuck it out with PC games, and now I rarely buy console games unless I find them used or in the bargain bin.

Granted, I also only rarely buy PC games at full price as well. Games are just getting more and more expensive, and really, they're giving us less and less each year.

[Veyne]

Ok I'm wondering if anyone feels the sameway I do. I got me a Ps4 and soon will have a XboxOne/Wii-U and what is annoying me is games coming out for both last gen and next gen but yet the next gen is costing anywhere from $10 to $20 more.

The only reason they are doing this is because "Well it has a shinnyer coat of paint and runs better" By now any game going to both gens is ether originally made for next gen then downscaled or made for last gen and upscaled without much work needing to be done.

Examples of games doing this.
http://www.gamestop.com/browse/plays...on,28-xu0,138d "Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition $40 Ps3"
http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/di...edition/115031 "Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition $60 ps4"

http://www.gamestop.com/ps3/games/pl...warfare/115290 "Plants Vs Zombies Guarden Warfare $30 Ps3"
http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/pl...warfare/115289 "Plants Vs Zombies Guarden Warfare $40 Ps4"

These are just some examples of games doing this. You would think because the playerbase is smaller on new gen vs old they wouldn't price hike. In fact you would think they would some deals/dlc crap just to try to sell it on the new gen more.

Don't get me wrong I know I am apart of the problem because ill still buy some of these games even tho last gen is cheaper. But its just fucken annoying they are doing this just because "IT NEW HARDWARE IT RUN BETTER AND LOOK BETTER DAR DAR DAR"

So dose this bug anyone else at all? Even unknow companys have done this like Majesco/Spider Studios.
http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/bound-by-flame/114155 "Bound By Flame Ps4 $50"
http://www.gamestop.com/ps3/games/bound-by-flame/114156 "Bound By flame Ps3 $40"

Some games shouldn't even cost near full retail price or over $30 in my opinion. Like Plants Vs Zombies Guarden Warfare. It has been on PC and XboxOne for almost if not over half a year and yet its coming to Ps4/Ps3 at its new released price from then. Not trying to sound like I am hating on XboxOne both systems are having this happen I just pulled ps4 links.

Sorry for the long rant but dose this bug anyone else who games on console?


"To Be Clear I don't give two shits about PC sells and all please keep PC comments out of this thread. It is about Last Gen and New Gen consoles not steam sells"

Honestly, this isn't a new thing at ALL. Games that have spanned two gaming generations have always done this. As far as the whole playerbase-pricehike argument, it would actually make logical sense for something with a larger playerbase to be cheaper because more units will naturally move compared to something with a smaller playerbase.

[Rennadrel]

No, Jt. It is much easier to develop for hardware you've had 5+ years experience working with, than with newer hardware that you're still learning to get the most of.

Still the biggest excuse that anyone can use for developing games if I have ever heard one. Christ, we have had multithreading processors for about a decade now and the PS4 and Xbone don't use anything close to high end graphics technology, so it should be pretty damn easy to program a game for technology that has existed in some capacity for a decade.