Games were cheap for a long time. It was a competitive market. When the N64 came out, game cartridges were 80$ in the US (depending on the title). Neo Geo games were $200 a cartridge new before that. The prices resembled a (arguably) higher quality item.
The Sony PlayStation had games typically around the $30 to $40 dollar price point and that enabled Sony to sell endless copies of Blasto and other (arguably shovelware) games at the time. This loss leader strategy Sony had destabilized a lot of the market. Systems makers had to lower the price of games to increase the install base and they constantly lost money (sega Saturn games used to sell as low as 10$ new in 1997).
$70, $80, even $120 Dollars for a triple A title like Elden Ring or Super Mario Galaxy wouldn’t be that crazy to me depending on the state of that market. Some people are buying OG PlayStation games like MegaMan Legends in excess of $200. In the end though, you have the game. It is your copy.
The wake up call for me was when Microsoft has to be shamed into walking back their weird anti consumer Xbox game cd key sharing policy because Sony made this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
Yes that is true.
Games were cheap for a long time. It was a competitive market. When the N64 came out, game cartridges were 80$ in the US (depending on the title). Neo Geo games were $200 a cartridge new before that. The prices resembled a (arguably) higher quality item.
The Sony PlayStation had games typically around the $30 to $40 dollar price point and that enabled Sony to sell endless copies of Blasto and other (arguably shovelware) games at the time. This loss leader strategy Sony had destabilized a lot of the market. Systems makers had to lower the price of games to increase the install base and they constantly lost money (sega Saturn games used to sell as low as 10$ new in 1997).
$70, $80, even $120 Dollars for a triple A title like Elden Ring or Super Mario Galaxy wouldn’t be that crazy to me depending on the state of that market. Some people are buying OG PlayStation games like MegaMan Legends in excess of $200. In the end though, you have the game. It is your copy.
The wake up call for me was when Microsoft has to be shamed into walking back their weird anti consumer Xbox game cd key sharing policy because Sony made this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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