It's really a matter of perspective, your place in life, and the value you put on both entertainment and your dollar.

In determining the "worth" of a game, are you saying that no game is worth 550 servings of Cup o' Noodles or that no game is worth one mildly cheap dinner date?

Because while I can understand not wanting to fast for a year and a half, the girl can stay home for one night in exchange for hours and hours of video game goodness (Yes, it's a miracle I ever got married).

$63 from back in 1982 when Pac-Man first came out for the 2600 is the equivalent of $130 in today's money. So video games are really half as expensive as they were 25 years ago.

So you're complaining about arbitrary game prices by demanding your own arbitrary prices? They sell for what people are willing to play. No one is forcing you at gunpoint to buy a game on release day when you can always wait for the inevitable price drop. Hell, think how cheap you can get Madden 03 for now!

This reminds me of the rant someone did once where he bitched about how premium Quicktime was better than free Quicktime, and that all Quicktime should always be free.

You must have a really sweet setup if BSplayer in "movie mode" looks as good as Blu-Ray.

And on-topic... if you don't want to pay $60, don't. Regardless of your opinion(s), there is a market for the games at $60 (they wouldn't be $60 if no one bought them).

Come over to my house and play a 360 game on my 57" TV with components...I bet you can see a pretty big fucking difference.

As for game prices, it doesn't bother me. I do my research first, and buy only games I really want. Madden will be next.

= J

Back in the old days of cartridge-based videogame systems, when being able to play games from the arcades in your own home was a big deal, spending $60 to $70 was commonplace. The most expensive games I remember buying were the 3 iterations of Street Fighter II for the Super Nintendo. Imagine having spent $70 each time they came out with a Street Fighter game?

It's incomprehensible now, but back in those days, people spent $ on games without much thought. Nowadays, it's a whole different story. You always know that prices on games are going to drop to $20 or $30 if you wait long enough, most times even less.

If I had to play my 360 games on a 13" TV, I wouldn't think they'd be worth $60 either. How the hell can you even see who you're sniping in something like Gears or R6:V?

I have not yet played a Wii game that is worth more than $30 to me. I'm staying as a renter utill they start coming down in price. The only 2 games I own, 9 months later, are Wii Sports and Wii Play.

Well, let's see DVDs cost around $15-$20 for 2 hours plus we'll be generous and say 2 hours of extra features. Videogames can take you anywhere from 6 hours to 15 hours to complete not to mention multi-player and going back and trying to get a 100% completed. If you look at it like that than $60 is a bargain.

I have yet to pay $60 for a game this generation. I wouldn't even pay full price for FFXII and I love that series.

It is used games or wait for price drops for me. I have yet to see a PS3 game so much fun it was worth the cost of 2 DS games.

I doubt I would even pay $60 for GTA IV.

Wii games are an even bigger joke at $50.

Thankfully there are plenty of people buying these at full price and trading them back in so I can clean up at the B2G1F used sales at EB.

I have never paid $60 for any game ever. I own a ps2 and n64 and used to own ps1. I have always waited for the game to go on sale and never bought any game at full price. The most I have ever paid for any game is around $35. Just do research. Not that hard.

SNES games used to launch at $60 depending on the game. It only went down for the N64/PS1 generation.

That is all fine and good, but if you don't buy the game (at $60) then when does the used copy become available to purchase at the discounted rate? If only a few people purchased the game at the initial release price, then in 12 months the used copies are now "rare" titles and will likely command a premium.

The solution is for the gaming companies to see that if the sell 500k units at $60, they would probably sell many more at a lower price.

If it weren't for the extraneous commentary tossed into the thread, I think this would be a great article for the Videogame Talk column (the only thing at my place that is 13" and worth talking about can't be discussed in this forum...cough...lol).

The first videogame I drooled over was PONG. Sears sold it for about $200 and that was back in the early 1970's. The $200 Atari 2600 came years later with cart's running as much as the $60 so offensive above. Thankfully, economies of scale and the way technology gets cheaper over time outweighed the rate of inflation so much or most of us wouldn't be buying any games from the looks of it.

One of the strengths of the videogame reviews is that they give consumers a deeper look at a game than the box cover (not to mention a more credible look than many of the fansites that suck up to game companies). With $60 being too much for some of you to afford (or more than you are willing to spend), such reviews can serve as a starting point to narrowing your searches down. I've had many hundreds of hours of fun with C&C 3: Tiberium Wars that was picked up for $40 when it came out. It has some weaknesses but is still a lot of fun. Compared to any other form of entertainment I've had in a long time, the cost per hour of the game has been pennies (maybe I should review it...) and I can even sell it and recoup much of my investment should I get bored waiting for the inevitable expansion package destined to make it even better.

Game producers don't live in a vacuum. If you buy many more games at a particular pricing tier and send them snail mail telling them why, they are likely to lower the price. If I worked a minimum wage job, $60 for hundreds of hours of gaming on a 13" TV would probably seem tough to justify too (after income taxes and other deductions, the $60 game, which would have sales taxes and/or shipping, would translate into a lot of flipped burgers).

sony really needs to bring back the greatest hits line once the PS3 is a little more established, it would help sell more consoles.

with the xbox 360 and playstation 3s downloadable content, theres no reason why there should be more madden games or any other sports title. Just have a yearly update that you can download onto your original game. Most sports titles sequels have very few new features that would justify putting down 60 bucks every year!

I had my 13inch tv since i was 4 years old, now i'm 26. It still works like a charm. I have a 57 inch tv in our living room, me and my wife watch our dvd movies, cable on it. And in the bed room, we have a 31 inch. But as i said in my entertainment gaming room, i use the 13inch and i pretty much see everything and its fun.

Btw, about bsplayer. I watch some of my smallville dvds in the media player and no lie, if you set it to movie mode, also make sure you have a good video card, it looks just like the movie theater. It doesnt sound like hahaah, or feel like it, but the Q is there for sure.

No lie, try it. Btw, BSplayer is not only for xp or 2000, i am running windows98se and it works just fine.

I'm sure it looks "fine" as you say, but to say it looks better/the same as BluRay/HDTV is just silly.

This part surprised me - I expected you to be on Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

What kind of piece of shit movie theaters are around you that you think a regular DVD with a filter on it looks as good?

I agree that $60 for a game is a little rich for my blood, even though I can understand why they cost that much. But you have options. Since so many games these days are good for one play through, maybe two, why not try Gamefly or something.

I'm the type that gets bored with a game pretty quickly, so it's ideal for me to rent 2-4 games a month and play them to my hearts content, and when I'm done send those suckers back for new stuff.

I thought Super Paper Mario was worth the 50 bucks I spent on it.
If you rent from Gamefly you can get most games for around 40-45 dollars used. After 3 months you get 5 dollars in GF money, and usually have a discount on most games.

I got shadowrun from there for 30 bucks, with all the GF cash I had

Here is his idea of a big screen.

http://www.books4you.addr.com/TV_Pro...snel_Lens.html

that's a good way to make yourself feel better about paying 60 for a game.

nice

I have seen a ripped blu-ray movie shown thru zoomplayer that was perfect at a friends house. He ripped a disc he bought to test on his HTPC to his projector. It did look sweet