mburkit wrote:joegianco wrote:That was their whole reasoning for upping the price to $60 bucks when the new consoles came out.
I thought that that whole "cover production costs" was just a big racket to charge us more but if you are consistantly spending that much to make a video game it becomes a little more understandable.
I've been playing video games for a long time and I'm pretty sure they have always been $60.00, atleast from the PS2 era. I'm not 100% before then because I was too young to hold a job hence why my parents made the purchases for me.
In fact, when the wii came out, I was surprised that they were only priced between $40-$50.
Historically, video games in the United States on a disc-based (CD or DVD) console retail for $49.99. This has been the case for Playstation, Playstation 2, Dreamcast, GameCube, Xbox, and Wii. Games on a cartridge-based console typically retailed for $59.99 (SNES, Genesis, N64, and perhaps even the NES). The added cost is associated with increased production costs for the cartridge.
Nowadays, game platforms that feature HD graphics (PS3 and X360) require additional development time and R&D (or so the story goes...) and developers pass the cost off to consumers with a $59.99 MSRP. Because the Wii does not feature HD graphics or use a new media format (blu-ray as is the case with PS3), most games for it have a $39.99 or $49.99 MSRP.
A quick look at the top 10 most expensive games ever made list kind of proves this point. Grand Theft Auto IV, Too Human, Metal Gear Solid 4, Halo 3, APB MMO, Tom Clancy MMO, and Killzone 2 are all HD next-generation console titles. The other games on the list are simply MASSIVE games that had very long production times. Shenmue took over 7 years to make!
Keep in mind though, video games are BIG business. Halo 3 made
$170 MILLION in the United State alone on its first day! That's right, the game was profitable for Microsoft within hours of the the game's release!
This is what is so appealing to movie franchise owners about video games. You can spend $105 Million on a Pitch Black sequel (The Chronicles of Riddick) and just be crushed as the box office (the film barely made a profit even after DVD, pay-per-view, and 2nd run theaters), or you could reinvent the franchise as a game with a much smaller production budget (Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena) and make a larger profit much easier.
I think the makers of Terminator Salvation are going to find this out the hard way. That movie had a
$200 MILLION budget and is tracking to finish out its worldwide box office run with something just south of $190 million. Ouch! That doesn't even take into account marketing costs.