Beloved Ex-PlayStation Boss Believes $70, $80 Games Are a Steal

Ex-PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida believes $70 and $80 games are a “steal” when compared to other forms of entertainment

The newly independent executive was speaking at Gamescom LATAM, where he was inevitably asked about the rising cost of games. Almost all publishers bumped the price of their software up to $70 at the start of the PS5 generation, but now Microsoft and Nintendo have announced they will increase the cost of some of their software to $80.

Speaking with Critical Hit Games, Yoshida spoke in favour of variable pricing: “Each game has different value it provides, or the size of budget. I totally believe it’s up to the publisher – or developers self-publishing – decision to price their product to the value that they believe they are bringing in.”

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 recently found significant success at $50, for example, despite it having the production values of a much larger-scale release.

“In terms of actual price of $70 or $80, for really great games, I think it will still be a steal in terms of the amount of entertainment that the top games, top quality games bring to people compared to other form of entertainment,” he continued.

While we can see where Yoshida’s coming from – games can offer hundreds of hours of entertainment compared to a movie ticket, for example – it’s really difficult to justify such enormous costs when free-to-play releases exist. It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of impact these prices have on the industry.