Former CEO of Square Enix thinks Sony will be a benevolent Monopoly, not like the other monopolies.
Navok’s interpretation rests on a lot of maybes and charity.
While it certainly would lower the cost of producing and distributing the games, anyone with half a brain will realize those savings will absolutely not be passed down to the consumer. PC games have been purely digital since the late 2000’s and they have actually gone UP in price.
For the low price of 59.99 you can have the 11 year old Black Ops 3, or maybe you want to save some money and buy the 15 year old MW3 For 39.99
I want someone to come up with a single example where a company lowered prices on a product without reducing its original size.
It definitely has happened, the Ford model T went down in price by more than half from $780 in 1910 to $290 in 1924.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T
Nothing like that is happening here. This is a move to reduce competition, which has never lowered prices.
There are normally plenty of examples when an effective monopoly is broken of prices coming down to stay competitive, patents expiring on drugs normally sees prices tumble. A single example where a company becoming an effective monopoly lowered prices might be a better comparison because I’m fairly sure that hasn’t happened.
Proton dropped prices when their costs went down.
Most new products drop in price after the initial release, because the seller wants to extract as much as possible from the people who want the brand new thing.
Apple lowered the price of the original iPhone in 2007 from $600 to $400 after 10 weeks on the market.
The Sony PSX launched at $800 (aud) and dropped to $400 a few months later when the N64 was released at $400.
It turns out that Sony had that 100% headroom all along.
Reducing costs just pumps margins. Removing competition with retail boxes will not reduce the price.
It won’t.
Driving costs down doesn’t drive prices down. You may see prices stabilize and see more sales, but as you see today the digital and physical prices are the same for the first few months/years. With digital you are at the mercy of Sony, with physical you’re at the mercy of the retailer.
The only time Sony offered anything to the user as a charity was free online play and PS+ was $40 a year, but that’s because they were losing the console war with poor PS3 sales. There’s no incentive for Sony to do anything for the consumer.
“Current prices are tied to retail. Without physical discs holding digital hostage we’ll see a larger spectrum of pricing similar to steam.”
Too many people think prices are based on what the product costs to sell, instead of what customers are willing to pay. The former simply sets a minimum price.
This theory posits that it will force full-priced games to trend downwards, and points to the trajectory of Final Fantasy XVI’s costs on Steam to illustrate that when it budges, it budges further down.
Bro really said that because the cost goes down on Steam (due to not being a monopoly) that means that making PlayStation a monopoly (be getting rid of second hand games) would also make the prices go down?
Steam being digital isn’t the relevant part, there’d be nothing wrong with PlayStation being all digital…
If that didn’t make it a monopoly
He’s logic is predicated on publishers being able to sell Steam keys on their own without paying Steam because it didn’t “sell” thru Steam’s storefront.
And I’m pretty sure even a “steam box” doesn’t lock it to Steam store only.
This article isnt for people buying games, it’s rationale for Sony investors to ignore how bad this will be. It’s PR
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Kotaku? Really? Why don’t we just ask Sony what they think about what Sony is doing.
The author is somewhat critical of what they’re reporting on, the headline isn’t their own stance.
Digital game store breaks traditional supply/demand curves. Their supply is functionally infinite.