I love video games. Like most of you, I spend my night pouring over sites like Joystiq and scraping the corners of Twitter for the latest from all corners of the industry. What’s next? What’s big? Who’s “winning”? These are just some of the questions that we may ask ourselves on a daily basis. However, gamers who consider themselves “in-the-know” can sometimes lose track of the big picture.
The purpose of this article and the (albeit minimal) research behind it stems from the fact that my shelf is populated with roughly four times as many Xbox 360 games as PlayStation 3 games and I sometimes wonder why. I mean sure, there are some pretty fantastic Xbox 360 exclusives in the pile but there are also a number of fine titles that I could have purchased for Sony’s shiny black grill instead and didn’t. Why?
Pricing is as good a reason as any and as far as older games go, the PS3 has a major problem on its hands. Let’s take a look at Rainbow Six: Vegas first. Here we have two games which claim to offer the same experience (some may even say the Xbox 360 version is better, but we won’t touch that subject at the moment) and yet the PlayStation 3 version (that’s the one for the system currently in last place) actually costs $10 MORE. You’d think the powers that be would try everything in their power to boost the attach rate for the most expensive system on the market. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.
I know what you’re saying to yourself, or perhaps even shouting at the computers screen; “Mike!” you yelp, “You damn nitwit. The PlayStation 3 version was released a good seven months after the Xbox 360 edition and therefore hasn’t had the same time to be discounted!”
Good point, young Billy. With that logic cemented in the heads of the people making the pricing calls, surely the sequel, which was released on both systems simultaneously, should in turn follow the same pricing model regardless of platform, and yet…
Bummer. It looks like the PS3 owners are still being fleeced, but that can’t be the end of the story, right?. Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have some serious exclusive heavyweights in their respective corners and the pricing of those titles is probably pretty much in line with one another…
“Enough already!” you shout. “Sure, these are just a couple of examples. What about some of the PlayStation 3’s most hyped older titles? Those have to have come down in price by now!”
Alas…
Honestly, this could go on all day if we really wanted it to. We could bring up the fact that while LittleBigPlanet and Fable II were both GOTY contenders, released for $60 on the very same day last year (Oct. 21), and yet one is now half price while the other holds steadfast at $60. In fact, I think we just did bring it up.
Now let’s be clear on something: we’re not pointing the finger at anyone in particular here. As was seen by Best Buy’s recent “BUY EVERYTHING FOR $10!” sale, retailers still have a fair bit of control over the price at which they allow their merch to walk out the door. However, there does seem to be a rather disturbing trend forming that doesn’t bode well for current for prospective PlayStation 3 owners.
Those of you who had the pleasure of gaming in the mid-to-late 90’s will remember Sony’s format advantage over the Nintendo 64 in that the CD’s the PlayStation used were much cheaper to produce that Nintendo’s cartridges. At the time this lead to PlayStation games debuting for $10 to $20 cheaper than their N64 counterparts and also being discounted far sooner. When all was said and done the N64 sold less than 1/3 as many consoles as its disc-based foe.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, with pricey Blu-ray technology going up against the now dirt-cheap DVD format, will a similar fate befall the PlayStation 3? Sound off in the comments.
**All prices used in the above comparisons were obtained from online pricing lists and the retail sites of national chains such as Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart**
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