Having held out for as long as possible, Microsoft is finally lining up with the competition on the price of Xbox exclusive games.
After the end-of-year celebrations, the firm will indeed apply a 10-euro increase on its flagship exclusive licenses from the Xbox Game Studios stables, like the next Forza Motorsport and Starfieldamong others.
Microsoft ceases its resistance
While the price trend is on the rise in all sectors, Microsoft almost acted as the village of Asterix on the side of games exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. The beginnings of a change had already begun to be seen when Phil Spencer mentioned a potential price increase for the Xbox Series X|S, following that applied by Sony to the PS5.
It’s now official, the games called ” first party » from the Xbox Game Studios group, aimed at the Xbox ecosystem as well as the PC, will go from 2023 to 79.99 euros. Microsoft has made the following statement about this sad resolution:
” We have held back on raising prices until the end of the year celebrations, so that families can more easily afford games. From 2023, our games developed especially for the next generation like Forza Motorsport, red fall and Starfield will be launched at a full price of 79.99 euros on the platforms concerned (Xbox Series and PC). This price increase reflects the content, scale and technical complexity of these titles. Like the other games developed by our teams at Xbox, they will of course be available from their launch on the Game Pass. “.
You will have understood it with this last subliminal sentence, the price of the Game Pass subscription should not increase, at least for the moment.
A new generation that is expensive
While some publishers did not wait for the new generation consoles to be more accessible to increase the price of their latest games, Xbox is unfortunately finally clinging to the wagon launched in particular by Take-Two or Ubisoft. The two titans of the industry, Microsoft and Sony, will therefore be on an equal footing from January.
The arguments put forward by the Redmond firm are the same as those made by Take-Two two years ago: games dedicated to the new generation of machines cost more to produce and take longer to develop.
This is of course not the only explanation behind this sudden decision. The current economic context obviously has a role to play, and the famous invocation of the inflation card is not far behind. If new generation games are expensive for studios and publishers, they will above all hurt the wallets of players… unless they subscribe to Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.
One might even think that this is ultimately the ultimate goal of the industry giants: to push consumers to turn to a subscription service in order to increase its profitability. It remains to be seen whether the price increase applied to Xbox games from next month will really impact the subscription account for its Game Pass service.
Source : IGN
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