Capcom President thinks game prices are “too low”
Capcom President Harushiro Tsujimoto claims that the retail price of video games is currently too low.
According to a report from Nikkei (as translated by Kotaku), Tsujimoto said during the Tokyo Game Show 2023 that video game development costs have become too high. “Development costs are about 100 times higher than in the Famicom era, but software prices haven’t increased as much,” he explained.
Additionally, he called for wage increases, saying: “Given that wages are rising across the industry, I think increasing unit prices is a healthy option for companies.”
Tsujimoto also claimed that a weak economy wouldn’t have much of an impact on video game prices either: “Just because there’s a recession doesn’t mean you can’t go to the movies or your favorite artist’s concert.” There will still be high-quality games sold,” he said.
Publishers have started charging $70 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of their current-gen games, up from the previous norm of $60. It started with the big developers like Activision and Electronic Arts. First-party players like Sony initially didn’t increase their prices on their PS5 games, with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal costing $60. However, Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok were priced at $70 on the PS5, and the upcoming Spider-Man 2 will also have this price. Microsoft also followed suit at the end of last year.
Even Nintendo has set the price for its major sequel The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at $70, although the company said it would review pricing on a “case-by-case basis.”
However, Capcom continues to sell its own games like Street Fighter 6 for $60. Even the iPhone 15 port of the Resident Evil 4 remake will cost the console standard $60, it was announced today.
However, it is possible that Capcom will increase the prices of the standard version of its current-gen games to $70 in the future. One of Capcom’s next big releases is Dragon’s Dogma 2, which seems like a likely candidate for this price increase since it’s a current-gen exclusive.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He has been writing about the industry since 2019 and has collaborated with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR and Variety.
When George isn’t writing about video games, he’s playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
