Xbox Is Coming To Its Senses About What Its Future Looks Like

Just a month and some change after announced that would cost $80, has now informed players (through two ) that the upcoming title 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:will now retail at $69.99. Xbox has also said that “full-priced holiday releases” will be set at that price point too, “in line with current market conditions”. This likely means wilᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚl also be priced at $70.

Funnily enough, Microsoft also cited “market conditions” when announcing its price hike, saying, “We understand that these changes are challenging, and they were made with careful consideration given market conditions and the rising cost of development.” That was a month ago. Market conditions have not changed all that much.

A split image with Limbo on the right, and some of the games it inspired (Little Nightmares, Somerville) to its left.

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Posts 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 𒁃

The Outer Worlds 2 Definitely Shouldn’t Cost $80

character raising a tankard in the outer worlds 2. — via Obsidian

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:My colleague Jade King wrote when the $80 🔜price tag was announced that hiking prices during a cost of living crisis was pretty hypocritical, considering The Outer Worlds 2’s anti-capitalist themes. The in-universe announcement from Obsidian felt like it was directly acknowledging those criticisms.

The tweet said, “As an organization devoted to making sure that corporations do not go unfettered, we at the Earth Directorate have worked with [REDACTED] to revise the price oꦿf The Outer Worlds 2. While this will not bring peace to the galaxy, or even your local colony, we assure you all that we are here to fight for all colonies in every way that we can.” Brother, that’s still a $70 game.

I’m not going to clown Obsidian too hard, though – this was clearly Microsoft’s decision, not the studio’s. 168澳💧洲幸运5开奖网:Game direct🌸or Brandon Adler himself said, “As a game developer, I wish ev💃erybody could play my game… You’d have to honestly talk to the Xbox folks.” The above tweet, while written in-universe, does seem to imply that Obsidian talked the publisher down on the pr𓂃ice. Perhaps the argument was that The Outer Worlds 2 has explicitly marketed itself as a smaller game, making it a wholly inappropriate candidate for Xbox’s most expensive game to date.

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Posts 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 🌱

Xbox Isn’t Beloved Enough To Be Raising Prices Like Nintendo

an upset waluigi charging a jump in mario kart world. — via Nintendo

But I suspect there were a lot of other reasons Xbox decided to backtrack on this decision. It’s possible that in combination with the sales canniꦅbalisation Game Pass inevitably causes, the high price of The Outer Worlds 2 caused soft pre-orders. This is all speculation, of course, since nobody has access to those numbers but Microsoft.

It’s also likely that Xbox saw the huge backlash to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo p♋ricing Mario Kart World at $80 and realised that if Nintendo, a beloved company by all accounts, was catching this much flak for a major Switch 2 launch title, Xbox would fare much worse. After all, its first-party slate is fairly weak as of now, it’s lost a lot of goodwill in the wake of its layoffs, and there’s enough discourse swirling around 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the viability of Gam🦩e Pass as a service that an $80 might not drive all that many people to subscribe to it, as Xb🉐ox likely hope🦩d.

Thankfully, there’s only been one $80 Nintendo game so far. ꧙We’ll have to wait and see if 🅠upcoming games align with the $70 norm or attempt to push for a higher price point.

I’m generally sympathetic to smaller studios and publishers trying to recoup spiralling development costs with higher prices but Xbox is not a small publisher, it’s a corporation that makes trillions of dollars, and these prices are not competitive. I think games are a luxury, and that prices have not gone up in tandem with development costs, but people are just going to stop buying expensive games and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:move further towarꦏds indie ꦑand double-A projects.

We need to be paring ꧅games down if they’re this expensive to make to match lower prices, instead of raising prices and expecting players to keep shelling out. Xbox is realising that it won’t be able to get away with it as things lie right now, but I’m sure its executives will try again some time in the future. After all, profit must go up.