Game prices are too low, says Capcom exec
eurogamer.net
Capcom's president and chief operating officer has said he thinks game prices should go up.
Haruhiro Tsujimoto made the comments at this year's Tokyo Game Show, Nikkei reported. TGS is sponsored by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, a Japanese organisation which aims to support the Japanese industry, which Tsujimoto is currently the chairman of.
"Personally, I feel that game prices are too low," Tsujimoto said, citing increasing development costs and a need to increase wages.
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I remember getting Donkey Kong on release for the Super Nintendo and it was more expensive than most games are right now, 66 usd. Name one thing that has the same price in 2023 that it did I 1994. It's insane.
They were a lot cheaper to make back then too.
These days that's indie game territory.
The Donkey Kong you bought in 1994 had to pay not only for development, but also for the package, for the circuits (think a 1TB SSD in 2023), for distribution, etc. Do you see modern companies having to pay for any of that?
You seem to miss the point it was almost 30 years ago and they spend 18 months developing with a team of 20 people. Read those numbers again. Damn, the electrical bills alone to create Starfield most probably surpasses the entire development cost of a handful of SNES games combined. Yes, old games had manuals and came in physical form but those components where cheap at the time.
I'm not saying game SHOULD cost more. I'm just claiming games haven't become a lot more expensive.
My dad still reminds me that when he bought me Dr. Mario for NES on release, it was $90USD. I remember seeing many a game at Toys R Us with price tags of up to $120.
But I can name plenty of games in 2023 that cost more $66. Shittons of console titles are $70 now!
None of which come with the media used to play, most don't even have a box. If you think games are cheaper now, you're being scammed.
I buy physical copies of ps4 games for under $10 pretty regularly. You can find some absurd sales if you know where to look and how to keep an eye out.
Good fucking luck playing that game without downloading anything...
I'd rather play the release version of a game than no version.
$66 in the 90's vs $70 in 2023 isn't cheaper because games are digitally distributed now? What are you smoking? Can I have some?
You're illiterate, I see. Show me a digital release which comes with a box, manual, and the media used to play, and I'll concede.
Apparently you're illiterate because I was asking how that makes them cheaper. None of those things matter in the slightest and would only cost marginally more to produce.
$70 is still more than $66, regardless of that unnecessary shit.
You're arguing that media used to play (i.e. a FUCKING SSD in 2023) costs marginally more? Find me an SSD that could fit Sea of Thieves for less than 25 USD (and isn't trash). If you're a shill, delete your account.
How is this part of the discussion? What did a SNES cost? This doesn't matter. Consoles and hardware always costs money. We are talking about the games here. Or do you want to take in to account what a decent TV cost in 1994 as well? And the second gamepad? We can't compare life as a whole. Saleries. Living cost. Everything matters, yes. But then we can just end the discussion right here and right now because we will never arrive at anything but ifs and buts.
Basic fucking inference, ever heard of it?
We aren't talking about the "console" used to run the motherfucking game, or some peripheral. A game for SNES comes with it's own fucking storage â the bloody cartridge â while a modern digital game doesn't. If you can't get two neurons to fire at the same time, then the discussion really is over.
Nintendo used cartridges up until pretty recently... as far as I'm aware, the prices never exceeded $60.
Digital games and physical games are the same price on the Nintendo Switch. They were the same on the Wii U, the Wii as well. Nintendo never stopped selling physical games. It's the same on PlayStation as well with the same price. At least it was on my Ps4. The larger piece of plastic didn't cost more in the 90s compared to the smaller piece of plastic in 2023. The manual/handbook also didn't cost anything noteworthy to produce back then. I really don't know where you are pulling these costs from.
Holy fuck, imagine being so completely alienated from the process of creating technology that you believe pressing disks costs the same as soldering circuits.
I'm still puzzled you compare soldering circuits 30 years ago with pressing a disk today. Games took a year to one and a half with about 15 people to develop compared to teams of 100 working for years. Like I stated earlier, the electrical bills alone to create the new AAA titles today are probably equal to the entire development budget of the AAA titles 30 years ago. However we twist it, we pay the same or less for games now than we did 30 years ago. A lot of games are even free now if you don't fall into the pit of buying skins. We are in a good place.
OIC... You're just an absolute dingus who has no fucking clue what they are on about. Cartridges were only slightly more to produce than a CD, and Nintendo still makes their games on cartridges (fancier ones than the SNES, too) that cost the same as the digital release. The only time this wasn't true was during the 64 era, when an earthquake shut down the manufacturers of the carts and fucked up production. Do you work for Capcom? I feel like you'd fit in.
As much as I don't want to see game prices increase, I've been shocked to see that they haven't kept up with inflation at all. Especially since the cost of developing games has skyrocketed.