My proposed solution to gamers upset with Microsoft: reduce the price of new games

curseoftheninja

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The once-a-day check-in has really bothered a lot of people, the used game debate as well. I believe this stems from the fact that $59.99 is a pretty steep price, especially when multiple games come out in a relatively short amount of time.

The policies Microsoft have introduced is all about getting revenue back to the publishers. I support publishers: it takes a ton of time and money to make an AAA game. Used sales prevents this; lending games to friends prevents this. Because of this, games are $59.99. We can look to Steam as an example: they often have massive sales on games. If you are patient, then you can get amazing deals.

So, the theory is that $59.99 comes from piracy, used games, and lending games. Now that these are severely reduced with XBO's DRM measures, the publishers will be getting the deserved profit from their games.

A great step of good-will toward gamers would be to drop the price of all new games to $44.99. I think this is a much more reasonable price, and I think much of the always-on furor would be reduced with this type of cut. Also, random Steam-style sales could be done.

So what do you think? I hope Microsoft does something like this. I truly think this is their best move (but I'm just an arm-chair economist).
 

Coreldan

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This has been discussed a lot on these forums already and it is very likely something that also MS is after with these changes. However, it's not so much down to them as it's down to the publishers. Let's hope that the X1 titles could be a bit cheaper due to more restricted reselling/trading, which means that the publishers should get more money as it is.

As you said, Steam is already doing this with a lot of success, let's hope the publihsers realize how similar the X1 is to Steam. It's not even that far fetched that X1 games will be cheaper than PS4 games, but at the same time it's not far fetched that the prices remain the same out of poor greedyness and lazyness of the publishers on both systems...
 

Reflexx

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Keep in mind that games are getting even more expensive to make with each console generation.

It's really up to the publishers and if they feel they'll get enough support/sales. I'm not sure if many will risk preemptively reducing prices before it's proven that many will buy. But I can see them lowering prices soon after a game is released if they already received a good response. Like if they sold a bunch of copies at launch, then maybe 60 days later it would drop in price by $10.

It would be great if MS could set an example by reducing the price of their first party games to prove that the business model could work.
 
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The once-a-day check-in has really bothered a lot of people, the used game debate as well. I believe this stems from the fact that $59.99 is a pretty steep price, especially when multiple games come out in a relatively short amount of time.

The policies Microsoft have introduced is all about getting revenue back to the publishers. I support publishers: it takes a ton of time and money to make an AAA game. Used sales prevents this; lending games to friends prevents this. Because of this, games are $59.99. We can look to Steam as an example: they often have massive sales on games. If you are patient, then you can get amazing deals.

So, the theory is that $59.99 comes from piracy, used games, and lending games. Now that these are severely reduced with XBO's DRM measures, the publishers will be getting the deserved profit from their games.

A great step of good-will toward gamers would be to drop the price of all new games to $44.99. I think this is a much more reasonable price, and I think much of the always-on furor would be reduced with this type of cut. Also, random Steam-style sales could be done.

So what do you think? I hope Microsoft does something like this. I truly think this is their best move (but I'm just an arm-chair economist).

$50 is the lowest plausible amount.

The publishers are going to be making more money because they will receive money from a used game sale. But they are still not receiving the amount of money they would get from a new game sale.

You can't buy used games on Steam. So that means publishers will make less money with consoles then they will with Steam. $50 is the lowest amount possible.

If gamers didn't want used games, then the 24-hour check in wouldn't be needed. You can't have everything.
 

tk-093

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Go to your local WalMart or Target or whatever.. Look at the PC prices for some games then look at the XBox price for the same game. The PC price seems to always drop much faster.

I have to assume part of that reason is because PC games are not resellable. I mean it has to even cost more to make the PC version because you have to test on multiple PC configs with different memory and video cards, etc, and yet they drop faster.

If going all digital like the XBox1 is leads to publishers getting more sales because they start to get a cut of used game sales, I hope we start to see some of that happen. If we don't see that then we should start to ask questions....
 

gsquared

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The once-a-day check-in has really bothered a lot of people, the used game debate as well. I believe this stems from the fact that $59.99 is a pretty steep price, especially when multiple games come out in a relatively short amount of time.

The policies Microsoft have introduced is all about getting revenue back to the publishers. I support publishers: it takes a ton of time and money to make an AAA game. Used sales prevents this; lending games to friends prevents this. Because of this, games are $59.99. We can look to Steam as an example: they often have massive sales on games. If you are patient, then you can get amazing deals.

So, the theory is that $59.99 comes from piracy, used games, and lending games. Now that these are severely reduced with XBO's DRM measures, the publishers will be getting the deserved profit from their games.

A great step of good-will toward gamers would be to drop the price of all new games to $44.99. I think this is a much more reasonable price, and I think much of the always-on furor would be reduced with this type of cut. Also, random Steam-style sales could be done.

So what do you think? I hope Microsoft does something like this. I truly think this is their best move (but I'm just an arm-chair economist).

Why do that when people are lining up to get an XB1 just the way they are? From what I read Amazon has already sold out of there pre-order supply. Associating what you read here and what the paid bashers, I mean journalists have to say as the thoughts / feelings of the overall majority is no way to base a sucessful business.
 

curseoftheninja

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Why do that when people are lining up to get an XB1 just the way they are? From what I read Amazon has already sold out of there pre-order supply. Associating what you read here and what the paid bashers, I mean journalists have to say as the thoughts / feelings of the overall majority is no way to base a sucessful business.

There is a fine line between bending totally to your customer and keeping the customer happy. Consumers often don't understand the business side. I think my proposal is a fair way of keeping the customer happy.

Another issue entirely is the press. I do think they are blowing this out of proportion. Also, many people were already unhappy about the XBO before the first reveal event. I remember people saying that the PS4 is the hardcore gamer's system before Microsoft announced ANYTHING. I think the "backlash" against the DRM is not nearly as great as journalists are making it out to be.
 

gsquared

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There is a fine line between bending totally to your customer and keeping the customer happy. Consumers often don't understand the business side. I think my proposal is a fair way of keeping the customer happy.

Another issue entirely is the press. I do think they are blowing this out of proportion. Also, many people were already unhappy about the XBO before the first reveal event. I remember people saying that the PS4 is the hardcore gamer's system before Microsoft announced ANYTHING. I think the "backlash" against the DRM is not nearly as great as journalists are making it out to be.

I know we all like to be arm-chair CEO's an we obviously disagree on this. I, as if I had any say-so, would not lower the price of the console, nor any of the games by a single penny. Not as long as I saw people pre-ordering faster than I could build them.
 

Reflexx

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You know what MS should do?

They should have some sort of option where you could turn your cloud access to each game on or off.

If it's "on", then you get all the benefits of having a mobile account. You can access your games from anywhere.

If it's "off", then the game is only accessible from that console. But you'll be able to play offline.

It would need to do an online "check in" when you toggle this function on or off, so the cloud service knows what the status of your game is. So you'd have to make the decision about the game while you have an internet connection.
 

tk-093

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Here is a good example of game prices on a PC versus the current generation of consoles..

NBA 2K13 is last years game... It launched October, 2012.

If I want to order it now from Walmart for XBox 360 it's $39.99.

Yesterday GameFly (activates via Steam) had that and a few other games on sale as a digital download for $6.

$6.....

Though I don't expect stuff to drop that far for The One due to there being the ability to share with your "family" members and such, but I can totally see digital only software for The One to end up like that.

As somebody who mostly games on console but has bought his fair share of very deeply discounted games on Steam, this is the alure to me in a digital only download world...
 

spaulagain

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I know we all like to be arm-chair CEO's an we obviously disagree on this. I, as if I had any say-so, would not lower the price of the console, nor any of the games by a single penny. Not as long as I saw people pre-ordering faster than I could build them.


What you fail to account for is that a higher price does not always mean more money.

A lot of times if the price is lower, more people buy them. And often its enough more people to equal more in revenue then had it sold at the higher price.

5 buyers at $50 = $250
vs
10 buyers at $30 = $300
 

gsquared

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5 buyers at $50 = $250; Profit = 10%. Profit = $25.00
vs
10 buyers at $30 = $300; Profit = 5%. Profit = $15.00

Which would you pick?
 

a5cent

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There is a fine line between bending totally to your customer and keeping the customer happy. Consumers often don't understand the business side.

I agree, and I think some business aspects are still being overlooked:

Consoles, including the XBO, are sold far below cost. That means MS looses money on every console sold! At some point MS needs that money back. With each game purchase we are paying MS back, for giving us the console below cost! That is why console games will never be as cheap as PC games, where no such pay-back mechanism is required.

Unfortunately, that business model doesn't put MS in a financially lucrative position. The X360 endeavour has lost MS money. The entire xbox division has operated at a net loss over the last decade. Given that financial background, the proposition of cheaper xbox games seems rather unrealistic. However, instead of raising prices on games, which is what most business would do, MS is instead attempting to leverage new revenue streams, which is what the whole "home entertainment" aspect is about.

The fact that games are becoming ever more expensive to produce ($30 million is average, but you can take a look at this list to get a feel for how expensive games can get) makes your proposition even less likely.

Sony isn't doing any better.

The popular call for cheaper console games, particularly due to what people are accustomed to on steam, demonstrates that the console model simply isn't understood by most consumers.
 
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spaulagain

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5 buyers at $50 = $250; Profit = 10%. Profit = $25.00
vs
10 buyers at $30 = $300; Profit = 5%. Profit = $15.00

Which would you pick?


You completely missed the point. Profit margin may be less, but overall revenue is much greater.

I work for an Online Payment Processor. Our profit margins are verrrrry small per transaction, but our transaction count is high. In fact we just reduced our pricing/profit margin so that we could acquire more customers = more revenue.

Selling more games simply means producing more. And standard manufacturing convention tells you that the more you sell, the less the costs of tooling and development cost per unit. So you gain back that profit margin with the greater quantity sold.
 

gsquared

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You completely missed the point. Profit margin may be less, but overall revenue is much greater.

I work for an Online Payment Processor. Our profit margins are verrrrry small per transaction, but our transaction count is high. In fact we just reduced our pricing/profit margin so that we could acquire more customers = more revenue.

Selling more games simply means producing more. And standard manufacturing convention tells you that the more you sell, the less the costs of tooling and development cost per unit. So you gain back that profit margin with the greater quantity sold.

You didn't answer the question.

Anyway, I'm done with this post. Everyone has there own opinions.
 

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