Jon Burton: Make PSN Games Cheaper “Or The PSPgo Will Die”
Traveller's Tales boss calls for cheaper PSP downloads.Published 06/12/2009 at 17:22 by nofi
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We’ve all thought it – the prices for stuff on the PSN Store are far too high. Day and date launches at more than full price (I’m looking at you, EA) are ridiculous, and Sony’s inability to actually reduce the price of older catalogue titles is baffling. Speaking at the Developer Jury Service, Traveller’s Tales Jon Burton spoke out on the matter – “I own a PSPgo but don’t want to buy LittleBigPlanet, for instance, as I can get it 20 per cent cheaper on UMD from Amazon and could resell it once I’m finished with it” he said.
“But if I download it, I get no discount, and no chance to resell – how annoying is that? I’m betting on Sony making PSPgo games much cheaper than the UMD versions, or the PSPgo will die.” Bold words, but he’s got a point – unless a title’s “on sale” on the PSN, chances are it’s not going to sell to anyone with anything other than a PSPgo because the UMD equivalent will be reduced at retail and then you’ll get 30-50% or so of the price back anyway when you trade it in. Sony have got to realise this, and get those prices down.
Source: PocketGamer.
Comments
Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.
Doddsy | 06/12/2009 17:26
Totally Oscar Mike
731 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009
Company’s sell they discs to the retailers at a reduced price. Why don’t they just sell at around this reduced price?
cc_star | 06/12/2009 17:32
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Because on one hand they are saying £29.99 is the SRP… stores then sell it for £24.99 or less to gain the business… if Sony were then to sell direct to customers for this lower amount they would be in direct competition with the very people they want to sell games for them
I know it stinks but they can’t very well go undercutting their other channels
hazelam | 06/12/2009 17:44
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what other channels?
that’s the thing, when it comes to salling games for the go there’s only one place you can go.
if they had competition you think they’d worry about undercutting the other channels?
they say they’re just maintaining parity in prices, but it’s simply because they have no competition.
bajere | 06/12/2009 19:04
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1067 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2008
would agree if others could sell the games cc…if play or amazon etc could sell them, then we would get the same effect as we do in the UMD market. But as people can only grab games on the go with the PSN, then sony can charge what they want. This is something i seen miles off, and im shocked that people still went out and bought a PSPgo!?!?!
flatspikes | 06/12/2009 19:49
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585 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
If Sony sold at significantly lower prices then UMD sales would be effected… PSP1000-3000 owners would simply switch to download if the discounts were large enough… Because this would cause problems I cannot see prices falling anytime soon for new titles but older titles should be reduced… GTA LCS £14 (£11.20 with zavvi discount) on store vs £7 used UMD… surely that could be addressed?
cc_star | 06/12/2009 17:26
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In Japan charge less for digital than physical because you obviously get less, that philosophy is sadly lost in the West.
nofi | 06/12/2009 17:28
Wants a custom tag.
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The PSPgo’s struggling like fuck in Japan, so I hear.
G_The_Enemy14 | 06/12/2009 18:09
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780 TSA Points | Member since: Jan 2009
haha, nice one
But seriously, it is ridiculous, its the main reason i didn’t get a PSPgo (also i had no money at release :p)
davidjmclare | 06/12/2009 17:31
always on easy
1094 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
with psn cards offered 20% cheaper i find the prices just about ok. altho as you say you can get 50% back by trading it in.
this does make me choose more carefully when buying psp games now, and id never buy an EA game!
im actually ok with the prices now, especially with the amount of free games im getting
still cheaper games would be awesome!
cc_star | 06/12/2009 17:35
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Something I find odd is the ‘Sony tax’
Game appears on the iPhone’s App Store for 59p-£1.79, practically an identical game (or exactly the same one) is £3.99 as a PSPmini, I know £3.99 isn’t going to break the bank, but seriously what is that all about?
jacklum | 06/12/2009 18:00
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990 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
Market forces. There are thousands of iPhone apps many of which are in the £0-1 range. If you charge more than that, people are going to say ‘why should I buy this for £4 when there are hundreds of other options for less than a quid. On the PSN, you have a much more limited selection where people are used to paying more for a game. Does Sony set the price for the PSPminis anyway?
iNsAnE_gAmInG | 06/12/2009 17:47
* Banned *
-1930 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009
Definetly agree. PSP Go users have no other options though so I guess Sony are milking it. If the games were around 20% cheaper than they are at the moment from the PS Store, then I would rather download them as an alternative to taking the noisy, crappy UMD’s around with me.
BalramRules | 06/12/2009 19:37
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98 TSA Points | Member since: Jun 2009
No, I think that there should be the following options:
1. Digital Copies of PSP Games should be 20% Cheaper than UMD Copies of PSP Games!
2. A Rent a Game Option for a chosen period of time (This won’t affect your game save if it expires, you can rent it again and continue etc. etc.
3. Logitech better be working on that Compatible UMD Drive for the PSP Go! OR ELSE!!!!
4. A new service in big shops like Game etc. where you could trade in UMD Versions of games for codes!
TctclMvPhase | 07/12/2009 03:09
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818 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2008
Theres evidence that Sony may have a game renting scheme in the planning stages, just pull up the information screen on any of your PSP’s PSN titles.
aranalas | 06/12/2009 17:49
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Its called PEGI, unlike the app store all games on the PSN store have to be rated, for a game to get a rating, the developer needs to pay a certain amount of money, therefore increasing the price.
carlosfilippsen | 06/12/2009 17:57
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That is one of the reasons why I didnt get a PSPgo. I am hoping they will bring the prices down then I will definately have to get one.
Danny-c-2k9 | 06/12/2009 18:18
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Downloaded games should be cheaper than on a disc, for example lbp psp is £21.99 to download or £18.99 to buy on umd, it should be cheaper because there’s no shipping no costs to put them on a disc,
message to Sony: if I don’t see games cheaper on psn I’m not going buy anything again from there, only psn exclusives
flatspikes | 06/12/2009 19:53
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585 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
Buy your credit from Zavvi and your looking at sub £18 for LBP… It’s the only way to shop!
davidjmclare | 06/12/2009 22:24
always on easy
1094 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
this is exaclty my point for all anit-psp go people. as long as they dont want to sell the game then it works out the same (a game like lbp or artic edge you just dont ever get rid of)
Raen | 07/12/2009 13:24
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You shouldn’t have to look for third party pricing to get it cheaper than UMD.
davidjmclare | 07/12/2009 13:27
always on easy
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i know there is the principle of it. but there is no more hassle, in buying umds you would have to wait for it to be delivered the same as credit. but yeh the principle may be wrong.
daveydaver34 | 06/12/2009 18:47
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48 TSA Points | Member since: Sep 2009
I agree that it’s a rip off, but given that any future PSP will likely be download only there’s no point buying UMDs since you won’t be able to transfer them to the new console. The major problem is that both downloads and physical discs have the same amount of advantages and disadvantages, so it’s hard to say which is better. The thing is though that downloads are gaining popularity and as they do they’ll get cheaper so somewhere down the line games and videos will go the way of music downloads, which are pretty much the same price as CDs only you can pick a few tracks rather than the whole disc and store thousands more tracks in the same physical space as a standard CD.
hunterstryfe | 06/12/2009 20:27
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I forsaw this the moment I heard about how the games would be sold, I think only hard core psp fans or people with more money than sense went for this idea. I still can’t believe they stooped as low as “buy PSPGo – get GT PSP free, you can trade cars between PSP and GT5 “when it arrives” lol OMG
davidjmclare | 06/12/2009 22:27
always on easy
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so far with the psp you could have potentially gotten GT, 3 £15 range games and a major £22 game all for free. the psp go is not for people with more money than sense (of course we didnt know all those games would be given to us free, but im going to over look that!)
Imaruler | 06/12/2009 22:24
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I agree with this article they should make the games cheaper.
tyrant161 | 06/12/2009 22:27
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Digital download games should be quite a bit cheeper than the umd equivelent due to the fact that there is no plastic box, paper cover or instruction book….therefore it is cheeper to supply it to the consumer yet i do find that these download games usually cost £5 or £10 more as a digital download.
davidjmclare | 06/12/2009 22:38
always on easy
1094 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
is it not to do with the psn putting them at the rrp and stores not doing so. im sure if you bought a book straight from the publisher they would charge the full price it says on the cover, but shops do not. same thing. (i have no proof of that cos i have never bought a book from the publisher… like most people.)
Raen | 07/12/2009 13:28
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Except the RRP in a store accounts for a couple of things such as distribution, the case, the cost of staff, electricity etc… This doesn’t apply with a game being sold digitally. The distribution cost is reduced to a coupla pence (tops), there’s less staff to pay (even with a dedicated support team for the servers, it’ll be smaller than the staff of every retail outlet selling the game by orders of magnitude), no cost of the case. As the costs are lower the RRP for online should be lower. The issue then is they end up with two bits of the business competing with each other. The same thing happened when stores like Toys R Us started up their ecommerce sites and they wanted to undercut the bricks and mortar because otherwise they’d get murdered.
davidjmclare | 07/12/2009 13:32
always on easy
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true.
Alex_Assassin_08 | 06/12/2009 22:47
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We all know that all PSN games should be at least a fiver cheaper than their UMD counterparts.
Realistically, they should be a tenner cheaper.
But SONY won’t dare do that for us until someone else does it first, oh no.
hazelam | 07/12/2009 09:10
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but as sony are the only people doing psp downloads there is nobody else to do it first.
Raen | 07/12/2009 13:30
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Yes, but they’re not the only people selling the games. Most (if not all) of the games are still getting a UMD release. They don’t want to compete against the UMD price, because that pisses their retail partners off. It’s not all about Sony internally, they have to think about the retailers selling in shop.
iBirch | 07/12/2009 08:22
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That was my main reason not getting a Go. They need to bring the prices down or at least do more offers.
jimmy-google | 07/12/2009 12:33
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Why did we expect digital games would be drastically cheaper than hard copies. It isn’t for any other media. Most music i buy is cheaper on cd than itunes and its the same for dvds