Capcom president Harushiro Tsujimoto claims that the retail price of video games is currently too low.
According to a report from Nikkei (per a translation from Kotaku), during Tokyo Game Show 2023, Tsujimoto said that development costs for video games have become too high. “Development costs are about 100 times higher than during the Famicom era, but software prices have not gone up that much,” he explained.
Additionally, he claimed that there needs to be pay raises, saying, “considering the fact that wages are rising in the industry as a whole, I think raising unit prices is a healthy option for business.”
Tsujimoto also went on to claim that a slow economy wouldn’t have a big impact on video game prices either: “Just because there’s a recession doesn’t mean you won’t go to the movie theater or go to your favorite artist’s concert. High-quality games will continue to sell,” he said.
Publishers have started to charge $70, instead of the previous norm of $60, for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of their games during the current generation. This started with the big developers like Activision and Electronic Arts. First-party publishers like Sony didn’t initially raise their prices own their PS5 games, as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal were $60. However, Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok were given the $70 price tag on PS5, and the upcoming Spider-Man 2 will have that as well. Microsoft, too, followed suit late last year.
Even Nintendo priced its big sequel The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at $70, although the company said it will evaluate pricing on a "case-by-case basis."
Capcom, however, has continued selling its own games, like Street Fighter 6, for $60. Even the iPhone 15 port of its Resident Evil 4 remake will cost the console standard of $60, it was revealed today.
It’s possible that Capcom will raise the prices of the standard version of their current generation games to $70 in the future, however. One of Capcom's next big releases is Dragon’s Dogma 2, which seems like a likely candidate for that price raise since it’s a current-generation exclusive.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He's been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
