Looking pretty
The Que$tion of the PSVita
With the new iteration of the PSP coming out this year in Japan and next year in North America and Europe, many people are really excited for the games that have been announced, like Uncharted, Resistance, Persona 4, etc. But there are also games coming out that are multiplatform, mostly ports like the Metal Gear Solid Collection, the Zone of the Enders Collection, and so on. We know the prices of the console itself, $250 for wifi, $300 for GPS, but the question is how much will these games cost?
Development Costs
We heard ages ago that games on the PSVita will cost about the same to develop as current PSP games do, this is encouraging, considering that every major title that was released had some sort of PSP version make it’s way over to the handheld realm (Because it was cheap enough to do). But with the PSVita’s power, it’s easier than ever to just port the game directly. At the reveal for this device, with a week of work Devs at Sony had Metal Gear Solid 4 running on the device at just under 30 frames per second. It’s becoming more and more apparent that we could have real console quality games running on this handheld, ones that don’t compromise on controls like the PSP versions did. This begs the question, how much should they charge for these games?
If you can get the same call of duty title on your handheld for the regular 40 dollars of a PSP game, and have it run interconnected with PS3s through PSN, would you buy the console version? Kojima said that his next game will run on both the PSVita and the PS3 in tandem, making both titles exactly the same regardless of platform. This is great news for handheld gamers, it’s like we’re getting a handheld copy of the PC market, where the exact same games are released at a lower price, just because the market is different. They dropped the current price of new release PSP games, so one can hope that the PSVita will launch with 40 dollar software offerings, but what about games that run between both the PS3 and PSVita, should we have to buy the game twice?
No plans yet
Games that Run on Both the PSVita and PS3
How will Sony make this system work? One can guarantee that no one will spend almost twice the amount of money for the same game on both systems. For games like Ruin, which will be both a PS3 title and PSVita title this price question is an important part of their success. The dream is for Sony to have a version of what Valve did for Portal 2′s Steam operability. Buy it on one platform, get it on the other free. This would be tough to see though, considering they’d cannibalize their sales. A PSN member, Krae_man asked this question this week to the developers of Ruin, and it seems that they don’t even know the answer to that question yet. One possibility is a small fee for a portable unlock of the game if you already own the console version. But once again, if it’s the same game on the PSVita and the PS3, why not just get the Vita version? This will be interesting to see with this game, and ones like the Metal Gear Solid HD releases. Why get a console version with an extra 20 dollars tacked on instead of the exact same game that can fit in your pocket, with the gameplay is intact?
Conclusion
Looks like I could snap that little game cartridge...
At this point we can only guess what the pricing of these games will be, but here’s hoping that the Vita games are only $40 for a new retail game, and that they get some significant digital deals like PC gamers receive off Steam and other Digital Delivery Services. Especially with games that work between the Vita and the PS3, it’s hard to think people will buy hard copies for both, and I think we’ll see a lot of gamers go 100% digital on this new console, which I think could be a boon for game prices. They need to come up with some way to allow gamers to play games between consoles as easy as they did at this year’s E3 press conference without paying an arm and a leg. But sadly in my opinion, we’ll be paying for the privilege, and not just in crazy memory card prices either.
Tell us what we want to know Sony!
PSoneclassics.com
September 24th, 2011 on 2:58 pm
I really don’t think of this as too much of an issue; so long as I’m only paying for a single copy, I’ll pay a fair price.
Emphasis on FAIR, not on price. Take Duodecim, for example; it was a great game, to be sure, but it was basically a mechanics tweak, a map and character pack, and a campaign I could finish in an afternoon. It had good content, but ultimately the lack of quantity made it feel more like DLC which should have cost half as much as what it did.
Had Duodecim offered a full campaign, though, it would have been worth more than the $40 MSRP; it would’ve been worth a full console $60.
It all boils down to that word fair; I’d say that there’s practically no overcharging for true works of quality, but I have a hard time seeing others shell out over $100 for a video game. It really highlights how independent critics and game reviewers (people who aren’t in bed with the developers and can write scathing reviews) need to be a key part of game marketing strategies.
September 24th, 2011 on 7:19 pm
No doubt there’s games that are worth the price, but every game’s price drops at some point (unless it’s a game with Zelda or Call of Duty on the cover seemingly). But that feature that’s so integral to the experience of the game needs to be handled so carefully.
I’ll be interested to see what they come up with. I’m sure it will be controversial.
September 24th, 2011 on 8:32 pm
For games that run on both consoles they’ll probably do some kind of bundle — like both games for $80.00. That would be fair, I guess. I wouldn’t pay extra for two copies, but maybe some people will.
Assuming that Vita versions of games will be cheaper and are direct ports, than I’ll buy most games for the Vita.