Overview

• Former PlayStation US boss Shawn Layden says that game prices should have risen with each console generation to keep pace with soaring development costs and inflation.
• Layden cautions that AAA projects costing over $200 million now need roughly 25 million unit sales to break even, a threshold most studios cannot meet.
• Publishers have leaned on microtransactions, downloadable content and deluxe editions to elevate average revenue per player while keeping base game prices flat.
• Nintendo launched its first standard $80 title, Mario Kart World on Switch 2, and Microsoft briefly planned $80 for The Outer Worlds 2 before reverting to a $69.99 price.
• Industry fear of losing consumer traffic has hindered first-mover list-price increases, leading to abrupt and uneven experiments with higher tags.