The price of console and PC games has experienced a significant increase in the last two years, and SEGA is the latest major publisher considering following that trend that Take-Two started with NBA 2K21 in August 2020, a title that hit the market with a price tag of $69.99.
Haruki Satomi, CEO of SEGA Sammy, and Koichi Fukazawa, the company’s CFO, confirmed in a recent interview that they would like to “revise” the price of those games that they think should receive a price increase, implying that it will not be a general measure, but that they will only raise the price of those games in which they consider it fair. They also qualified that they will closely follow the evolution and market conditions.
We’ll see what this ends up translating into, but the market trend is clear, and in the end, more and more publishers are launching their games with a minimum price of 70 dollars/70 euros, which represents an increase of 10 dollars/10 euros compared to the price we have been seeing previously. SEGA hasn’t taken the plunge yet, in fact its last major release, Sonic Frontiers, hit the market at a price of $59.99/euros, and was a great success, as it has accumulated 3.2 million units sold.
As for the arguments that the main publishers have given to justify this price increase, there are rising development costs and inflation. I understand that developing a game for a new generation of consoles can be more expensive than doing it for the previous generation, but in the end almost all the titles that are coming to the market are intergenerational transition, that is, they are developed for both generations, and they do not present important differences that help us understand this supposed increase in cost and this price increase.
The prices of PC games have been maintained at a more contained level, but even so we have seen movements that have certainly marked a major turning pointfor example the arrival of Final Fantasy VII Remake with a price of 79.99 eurosa figure that is far from the 49.99 or 59.99 euros that we are used to paying on PC for triple A games, and that represents a significant increase.
I think this is an interesting topic to comment on, so I’ll ask you a question, do you think it’s correct to raise the price of the games to 70 euros? Are you convinced by the arguments of publishers and developers or do you think that, in the end, it is nothing more than an excuse to earn more money doing the same? We read in the comments.
