The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Today I ask another question that needs to be asked:
Are consolegames too expensive and can their price be justified??? What do you think???
I remember the good old days of my Commodore64, I'd shell out the cash for a game every week or too, back then it only cost £2.99 for a game on budget, and people rarely brought the highly priced newest games (£10), although I admit I brought one…Golden Axe… a cracking game from Sega. Even then games were starting to get pricey, with NES games being the most expensive. Myself I moved quickly from the C64 to a Commodore Amiga, games on this system could cost up to £30, but then the games came on DoubleSidedDoubleDensity Floppy Disks an expensive medium which loaded a lot quicker than a C64 Cassette tape. However it wasn't till the advent of the Sega Megadrive and SuperNintendo that prices rocketed. When Capcoms Streetfighter II game came out on the SNES people were paying up to £80 for it (More for the faster imported US version). Ofcourse Streetfighter II was one of the best games available at the time, it was also on a cartridge and so had no loading time… in terms of hours of fun this game certainly made up for its price. I still remember when the import version was on display at the local shop - which became jam packed with kids wanting to play this virtually arcade perfect conversion for free.
The price could then be partly justified by the media - Cartridges, much as the cost of PerfectDark on the N64 can be justified today! However with the latest machines (PS1, PS2, Dreamcast) using the cheap Compact Disc media can the price of the games on these systems be justified. Should we pay up to £40 for the latest games???? What do you think????
Are consolegames too expensive and can their price be justified??? What do you think???
I remember the good old days of my Commodore64, I'd shell out the cash for a game every week or too, back then it only cost £2.99 for a game on budget, and people rarely brought the highly priced newest games (£10), although I admit I brought one…Golden Axe… a cracking game from Sega. Even then games were starting to get pricey, with NES games being the most expensive. Myself I moved quickly from the C64 to a Commodore Amiga, games on this system could cost up to £30, but then the games came on DoubleSidedDoubleDensity Floppy Disks an expensive medium which loaded a lot quicker than a C64 Cassette tape. However it wasn't till the advent of the Sega Megadrive and SuperNintendo that prices rocketed. When Capcoms Streetfighter II game came out on the SNES people were paying up to £80 for it (More for the faster imported US version). Ofcourse Streetfighter II was one of the best games available at the time, it was also on a cartridge and so had no loading time… in terms of hours of fun this game certainly made up for its price. I still remember when the import version was on display at the local shop - which became jam packed with kids wanting to play this virtually arcade perfect conversion for free.
The price could then be partly justified by the media - Cartridges, much as the cost of PerfectDark on the N64 can be justified today! However with the latest machines (PS1, PS2, Dreamcast) using the cheap Compact Disc media can the price of the games on these systems be justified. Should we pay up to £40 for the latest games???? What do you think????
Page:
But the thing is console games have not really risen much in price over the years, have they?
Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System had a RRP of £40 and that was 13 years ago!
I don't suppose anyone at SR would be able to look somewhere to see how much they used to charge for NES games?
meka_dragon PQMS8/00
Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System had a RRP of £40 and that was 13 years ago!
I don't suppose anyone at SR would be able to look somewhere to see how much they used to charge for NES games?
meka_dragon PQMS8/00
If the price of games arre so high becuase of piracy, why do cart vost so much?
Part of the reson in uising carts is to make then harder to copy (SNES floppy system being the most popular hack), carts are more expensive than CDs, but not the 20-30 quid more expensive, and its no harder to copy something to a cart than it is to burn it onto a CD...
Playstaion games are cheaper than playstation because of the number of units they expect to sell, and because Sony demand less for themselves from software developers.
The media its stuck on makes little to no difference in the price of a game, in the early ninties Games on Floppy disk cost the same as their CD-ROM counterparts... if the medium cost so much to use, console developers wouldnt use them...
Music CD's arnt made only by the band, theve also got an enourmous number of other people working behind the scenes putting everything together... a large number of well paid people!... If you look at games programmer salaies, there generally around 20-25K, which for a programmer is'nt excatly top whack... so large number compaired to the sale price are pretty pretty cheap.
Games do cost a lot to make, and if a game fails (Daikatana) in sales vs. production cost, then a software house has to get its cash back from somewhere, it is a business after all...
But mostly games cost asmuch as they do, because they can... EA, Sony, etc.. can and will make as much out of a game that they can... if you want cheaper games... complain! :)
p.s. Didnt as Rage (as ultimate) used to write speccy games? :)
Part of the reson in uising carts is to make then harder to copy (SNES floppy system being the most popular hack), carts are more expensive than CDs, but not the 20-30 quid more expensive, and its no harder to copy something to a cart than it is to burn it onto a CD...
Playstaion games are cheaper than playstation because of the number of units they expect to sell, and because Sony demand less for themselves from software developers.
The media its stuck on makes little to no difference in the price of a game, in the early ninties Games on Floppy disk cost the same as their CD-ROM counterparts... if the medium cost so much to use, console developers wouldnt use them...
Music CD's arnt made only by the band, theve also got an enourmous number of other people working behind the scenes putting everything together... a large number of well paid people!... If you look at games programmer salaies, there generally around 20-25K, which for a programmer is'nt excatly top whack... so large number compaired to the sale price are pretty pretty cheap.
Games do cost a lot to make, and if a game fails (Daikatana) in sales vs. production cost, then a software house has to get its cash back from somewhere, it is a business after all...
But mostly games cost asmuch as they do, because they can... EA, Sony, etc.. can and will make as much out of a game that they can... if you want cheaper games... complain! :)
p.s. Didnt as Rage (as ultimate) used to write speccy games? :)
*Decent topic alert*
If we're comparing the prices of console games to CDs, videos and DVDs then look at it like this:
Some NES games were priced at £45 pounds in my local Tescos when the system was at its peak of popularity. Today, N64 games retail at around the same price. So thats 10 years, and the price is the same.
Sometimes years can go into developing a game, and look at how many names are on the credits these days. Those people all need paying. (Unless they're monkeys working for peanuts, trying out the "if 1000 monkeys worked on 1000 PCs for 1000 years, eventually one would produce the greatest game ever seen" theory. It would explain some of the games I've played)
Look at the way that CD prices have skyrocketted since then. I remember when a new release CD was under £10. You'd be lucky to get it for £13 now in high-street shops.
Also computer games for platforms such as the Spectrum and Acorn Electron could be cheap, because half of them were written by kids entering competitions, and they got published!
That's why the quality of these budget games was so varied.
meka_dragon PQMS8/00
If we're comparing the prices of console games to CDs, videos and DVDs then look at it like this:
Some NES games were priced at £45 pounds in my local Tescos when the system was at its peak of popularity. Today, N64 games retail at around the same price. So thats 10 years, and the price is the same.
Sometimes years can go into developing a game, and look at how many names are on the credits these days. Those people all need paying. (Unless they're monkeys working for peanuts, trying out the "if 1000 monkeys worked on 1000 PCs for 1000 years, eventually one would produce the greatest game ever seen" theory. It would explain some of the games I've played)
Look at the way that CD prices have skyrocketted since then. I remember when a new release CD was under £10. You'd be lucky to get it for £13 now in high-street shops.
Also computer games for platforms such as the Spectrum and Acorn Electron could be cheap, because half of them were written by kids entering competitions, and they got published!
That's why the quality of these budget games was so varied.
meka_dragon PQMS8/00
why will he live longer then me???
huh??
I dont smoke!
huh??
I dont smoke!
er-no wrote:
> OH MY GOD!!!
golden rhino lives!!!
wow!
Long live the Rhino the Golden one.
> OH MY GOD!!!
golden rhino lives!!!
wow!
Long live the Rhino the Golden one.
Yes and he will live longer than you.
OH MY GOD!!!
golden rhino lives!!!
wow!
golden rhino lives!!!
wow!
Page: