You're almost right. All first party PS2 games are already $39.99. This includes Mark of Kri, Hot Shot Golf 3, Gameday 2003 and SOCOM (if you bought it at Amazon ). Upcoming first party games like Sly Cooper will also be priced at $39.99.
Unfortunately, the third parties like Square (Kingdom Hearts), EA (Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2) and Rockstar (GTA Vice City) have shown no desire to follow Sony's lead

Look at it this way:

Video games have gotten much, much better and considerabley longer over the last 20 years (compare Halo to Dig-Dug) and pretty much stayed at the same price (not even taking inflation into account).

Movie ticket prices have at least tripled over the same amount of time (doubled if taking inflation into account)

So, right now video games are the best value they have ever been.

Also, other software is outrageously expensive in my view like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects, etc. They cost hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars. I know most people don't buy this software, but look at MS Office. $300 for software that's not as fun as a game. Plus they keep on updating the software so you have to end up spending $100 or more every year to upgrade your various software.

$50 for a video game is a bargain.

It's true, games are so much cheaper than they used to be. I remember paying $60 for Phantasy Star 3 and other Genesis games. Now I pay $30-$40 for the latest PC and console games ($5-$10 for DC games ). And that doesn't even take inflation into account.

Part of the reason is due to the much bigger market for games these days.

The worst thing is finding time to play them.

Chris

I remember when alot of N64 titles cost anywhere between $60-$80. If memory serves me correctly, Zelda Ocarina of Time cost me $80. With that in mind I don't mind the $50 at all.

I could be mistaken, but I don't think MS Office is meant to be "fun".

You are right about the price they used to be. I was happy when they announced that games will be reduced to $50!!!!

To me I think is worth it!!! $50 is fine with me...(without tax)

Anyone remember that Sega Genesis game that retailed for $99.99? It was some sort of polygonal racer. I rented it just to see what a hundred dollar game looked like. Answer : crap. To think in just a few years you would be able to buy GT3 for $20....wow.

How many games do we really buy at $50? For me, its only the ones that I would really really really like, and really really really want to have now. I guess I'm a cheapskate : ) I've learned to practice patience as I await the next time games go on sale. The buy one take ones of KB, buy 2 take 3 of ToysRus, the discounted prices at Costco/Sam's Club (and there's a bunch right now!), and all of the goody goody prices over the web. So games may have been even more expensive from time past, but my wallet says $50 is still expensive for the here and now! ; )

My amatuer game developer friend did some research about developing games for consoles and the game development companies have to pay huge royalties to Nintendo, Ssony, etc in order to develop software for their titles. This may account for some aspect of the higher prices. For PC games, makers need only develop games, using the codes for windows, although their is some specualtion as to if Microsoft charges fees to use their codes. Since PC games don't have to pay all of the extra fees, PC games can sometimes drop down in price quicker, although big selling items like Neverwinter Nights and WC3 stay high priced for a while.

This is a good point... but it seems like PC games, which I would think have comparable production costs, go on sale MUCH faster than console games. At BB & CC they'll chop $15-20 off prices within a month or release for many big games. Why aren't console games priced to move like that?

Edit: Oh. Guess I should've read the post before me.

As far as the higher prices for SNES and N64 games go, those were cartridges which cost more to manufacture.

I remember spending $75 on SF2 for SNES and it still being a bargain. If a game is good enough then I don't mind paying more. Many games are very elastic purchases for me nowadays. $5 can be the difference between buying it or not. There are still a handful of games that I'll buy for full price the day they come out (Final Fantasies or Mario come to mind), but there are less of these the older I get despite the increased disposable income.

For those who want to factor in inflation, go here:

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/


Some personal highlights...

Intellivision: $369.99 in 1981 = $763.39 in 2001
Typical Intellivision cartridge: $30 in 1981 = $61.90
Colecovision: $189.99 in 1982 = $336.68
Zaxxon: $49.99 in 1982 = $93.51
Genesis: $199.99 in 1989 = $287.44
Tommy Lasorda Baseball: $59.99 in 1989 = $86.22

You'll never see me complaining about today's pricing. We're getting far more for far less than ever before.

I have no arguement about the MSRP's. I do wonder, however, why it's so hard to find anything at even a little discount. Think about it : Monsters, inc has a MSRP of $29.99, yet every retailer is selling it for $15- $17. That's a huge markdown on a big item. I assume it's being used as a loss-leader. Video games have some A-list titles that would certainly work as loss-leaders, but except for GBA titles, almost no new games are released at discount prices. I wonder if this is a result of pressure from the console makers?
Any thoughts?

The $10 Sony cuts from their prices could be cut from 3rd party prices if they didn't have to pay so much money to Sony just to release the game.

That was Virtua Racing, which I believe at the time was the first(or one of the first, been so long) 16MB carts. I remember just a few months later, seeing it everywhere in stores for $16.00, which is when I got it.

I buy a lot of older, classic releases and sometimes pay more for those. Finding complete, well cared for older releases is a hobby of late.

When I want a new release, 99% of the time I will wait until I come across it in one of the used shops around me. For instance I bought The Thing for PS2 for 28.99 in mint condition just last night. The only game in recent memory I paid MSRP (or close to it) was Morrowind for XBOX. I'm a sucker for RPGs.

Videogame collection costs - pretty complete list

$50 is a lot of money for me, as I'm currently living off student loans, so I'd say it's too expensive for me.

I have to be almost 100% sure I'll get a lot of play time out of a game before spending the cash.

Some said that it's a fair price as you spend more time with it than something like CD's or DVDs.

I'd have to disagree with that, especially on CDs.

First, CDs and DVDs are something I'll enjoy repeatedly for years, where as most games I only play once (or in the case of sports and fighting games, for year or so).

Second, for CDs the hourly enjoyment time is going to be higher for my favorite discs. I got 40 hours out of FFX (which is longer than most games). Take an hour long CD for example. I can listen to it over and over for years, and likely accrue a lot more than 40 hours of enjoyment out of it.

But regardless of whether I, or anyone else, think games are too expensive, the prices aren't likely to drop much further, so we'll just have to deal with it.