Why don't Sony/MS permanently slash all PS3/360 digital game prices to like £5?

[Pankratous]

Looking at the PlayStation Store (haven't checked MS) and they have digital PS3 games on sale for full price. They don't get included in any sales nowadays because it would just clutter up the more recent games that people are browsing through.

So at full price for a digital game for those generations... Who's paying for that? Absolute minimal people I imagine?

...whereas if they permanently cut the price of games from that gen to £5 I could see way more people going back to things they missed, or things they want to replay but sold their discs for.

I just don't get the point of keeping old games on the store for £40/£50.

 

[rpm]

Sony/MS don't set the prices (except for the games they publish).

 

[Stuart Gipp]

Selling eight games for £40 is less economically viable than selling one for £40 I guess.

By economically viable I mean, it makes them less money.

 

[nihilence]

Ask the publishers.

 

[h3ro]

Because money. They (pubs/rights holders) are probably still making enough from the trickle of sales on older titles on current prices to keep them right where they are.

 

[Desma]

Don't think they can do that. Ask the publishers

 

[Vashetti]

Sony/MS don't set the prices (unless it's their own games). Also, the tiny minority still actively playing those devices will pay full price to access the games. There's no incentive to price-cut.

 

[TheMoon]

you know they don't own all the games and can sell them for whatever they want?

also, why not make more money? why instantly devalue your entire catalog.

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

It's important (from their perspective) to companies to try and preserve value at least a bit.

Demon souls would be way less enticing if the og version was constantly £5, for example.

Plus with backwards compatibility hopefully being the defacto standard from here on out they wouldn't want rock bottom prices distracting from their current more expensive offerings (including remakes and remasters)

 

[nsilvias]

The money bags have moved on to new hardware so it doesn't make much sense to them. Its not steam where old games can be played on new hardware and people will still buy them. Ps4 games will keep getting sales but only because ps5 is backward compatible

 

[cw_sasuke]

Yeah...thats not how this works.
Also they have all these old games on sale all the time.

 

[Faceless_Caesar]

The PS3 store experience is garbage right now. I was looking for PS1 games on there last week and had to use search to find them. If I wanted to find a game that was no longer listed on the store using the download list is very slow.

 

[Vashetti]

Didn't someone from a publisher say some time back that Sony doesn't even allow discounts on PS3/Vita stuff anymore? I feel like I remember seeing someone say they wanted to price-cut a game and Sony wouldn't let them.

The only PS3/Vita stuff that sees discounts nowadays are cross-buy with PS4 (i.e. the PS4 version got put on sale).

 

[EvilBoris]

Because the prices are controlled by publishers , not by Sony/MS

 

[ghostcrew]

They presumably still see value in their catalogue and don't want to instantly devalue their entire collection. You can't go back (ie raise prices back to $40 later) if you wanted to. It's a pretty extreme move. Probably better sticking to sales like they already do.

Also, they'd only be able to mass price drop their own, as they can't set prices for third parties.

 

[eraFROMAN]

because people still buy them at the current prices

 

[Knight613]

In the event more BC happens, you don't want to have made them all dirt cheap.

 

[Faenix1]

I wish they'd slash all the prices 50%.

There are still PS3/Vita games I want for $54 CDN. I'm like.. the hell?

Didn't someone from a publisher say some time back that Sony doesn't even allow discounts on PS3/Vita stuff anymore? I feel like I remember seeing someone say they wanted to price-cut a game and Sony wouldn't let them.

The only PS3/Vita stuff that sees discounts nowadays are cross-buy with PS4 (i.e. the PS4 version got put on sale).

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That's what I've heard multiple times, and why I'm annoyed at Sony for shitting on their legacy. They do everything to prevent people from enjoying the past catalog.

 

[Bunzy]

Business, how does it work? Lol

 

[Pyro]

Because of folks like me who play and buy old games as much as new games. Last week I bought Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn for $40 (only available digitally) because I knew it wasn't gonna go on sale.

 

[sir_crocodile]

1) It's up to publishers, not platform holders, except when they themselves are the publisher
2) Some publishers don't want to devalue their games like that

 

[Pankratous]

you know they don't own all the games and can sell them for whatever they want?

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Why are people in here pretending that a platform holder can't enforce price rules over third party publishers? I'm sure Sony could work out an agreement with all major publishers to sell all extremely old games for cheap.

because people still buy them at the current prices

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Who's paying £50 for these old games? At this point it's cheaper to just move on and buy a PS5, you'd save money on current gen game sales.

In the event more BC happens, you don't want to have made them all dirt cheap.

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But if full/better BC happened, people like me would more inclined to buy potentially hundreds of games. I'm never buying a 10+ year old game for £40.

 

[oni-link]

because people still buy them at the current prices

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Do they though?

I know I would have grabbed loads of Wii VC games if they slashed them before they closed the store, but they didn't so I didn't bother

Same with the Vita, since Vita sales stopped, I have just stopped buying Vita games

I'm not paying £39.99 for a Vita game from 2012 in 2021, and I don't think there are many people that are willing to do so

If they even just did sales still, or knocked the price of a lot of their games to £5-£10 I'd buy loads

I just can't see there being many people buying PS3 games for 40 quid in 2021, whereas I bet people would grab some of these games if they dipped back on sale at least

 

[MeltedDreams]

What it sucks is, Sony completely stopped with PS3 games sales (not counting handful of cross-buy PS3->PS4 titles that go on sale, thanks to having PS4 version). Sony can't slash the prices of all games ofc, but at least they can still offer one sale per month.

 

[oni-link]

A lot of people are saying "It's the publishers" or "ask the publishers" but the point still stands, why are they not dropping the price of these games?

How many people are buying Black Ops 1 on PS3 for the 25 quid they're currently asking? How many copies can they have sold of that, week on week, since the start of 2021?

I feel like if they dropped that to even a fiver at least some people would pick it up

 

[StereoVSN]

Didn't someone from a publisher say some time back that Sony doesn't even allow discounts on PS3/Vita stuff anymore? I feel like I remember seeing someone say they wanted to price-cut a game and Sony wouldn't let them.

The only PS3/Vita stuff that sees discounts nowadays are cross-buy with PS4 (i.e. the PS4 version got put on sale).

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This is correct I believe. Pubs can't price cut PS3 and Vita games unless there is cross-buy. So yeah, Sony is absolutely also partly to blame, not to mention the shit thing they did in discontinuing legacy web store.

Pubs could set a lower default price but they don't care.

 

[Nexus2049]

A lot of people are saying "It's the publishers" or "ask the publishers" but the point still stands, why are they not dropping the price of these games?

How many people are buying Black Ops 1 on PS3 for the 25 quid they're currently asking? How many copies can they have sold of that, week on week, since the start of 2021?

I feel like if they dropped that to even a fiver at least some people would pick it up

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I 100% bought Black Ops on Xbox for $20 like last year. They probably make more money with the higher price, compared to selling it to more people at a lower price.

 

[oni-link]

What it sucks is, Sony completely stopped with PS3 games sales (not counting handful of cross-buy PS3->PS4 titles that go on sale, thanks to having PS4 version). Sony can't slash the prices of all games ofc, but at least they can still offer one sale per month.

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They should do a legacy sale, once a year, and slash all PS3/Vita games they can, and make it clear it's only gonna be once a year and until they opt to close the store. You'd get people going ham trying to pick up stuff before it's no longer available

If they don't, most people won't bother and the store will just close with no last influx of cash

There are probably 10-20 VIta games I'd get on sale, but I'm never going to decide to blow £200 quid on them. So if they don't put them on sale, I'll just go without, and so will the publishers selling these games, as they'll miss out on my money

Which is fine, I have enough to play, but seems like a no brainer for them as it's get money or don't get money, and they'll opt for "don't get money"

 

[Pixel_Cowboy]

Even if the price of PS3 games would go to zero, the low demand would remain as is. After playing with PS4 / PS5 it is just painful to go back to PS3.

Thus, publishers will keep the prices, no sales and gouge the very few buyers for these games. Valid for digital games only.

 

[Lashley]

It's the publishers, I think

 

[Pankratous]

They should do a legacy sale, once a year, and slash all PS3/Vita games they can, and make it clear it's only gonna be once a year and until they opt to close the store. You'd get people going ham trying to pick up stuff before it's no longer available

If they don't, most people won't bother and the store will just close with no last influx of cash

There are probably 10-20 VIta games I'd get on sale, but I'm never going to decide to blow £200 quid on them. So if they don't put them on sale, I'll just go without, and so will the publishers selling these games, as they'll miss out on my money

Which is fine, I have enough to play, but seems like a no brainer for them as it's get money or don't get money, and they'll opt for "don't get money"

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Yeah, even a once a year mega slash would be good, I guess. I'm in the same boat as you. They can either respect the (lack of) value for these old games and put them on sale, and earn some of my money, or they can not bother and get absolutely none of my money.

 

[gabegabe]

People are still buying them at that price and it's not up to Sony or MS to decide, it's the publishers that set the price.

 

[StereoVSN]

It's the publishers, I think

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Nah, both. Pubs literally can't do a sale on a Vita or PS3 title unless it's cross-buy. They could though lower the base price.

 

[oni-link]

I 100% bought Black Ops on Xbox for $20 like last year. They probably make more money with the higher price, compared to selling it to more people at a lower price.

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Xbox has more appeal though since you can play that on your new system. The PS3 version has less value because it's stuck on PS3

Maybe I should have picked a different game as an example

Either way, the cost of selling the game and keeping it available to buy is the same regardless of what price it's at, and sales are literally only a thing because they boost sales and revenue. No one would do sales at all if they lost money in the long run

 

[Symphony]

A bigger question is why they didn't do that to PSP, a legacy platform that no longer gets discount sales. I'd certainly stock up on everything I think I might ever want to play on my Go if they would actually run a big sale once in a blue moon.

 

[Magog]

Because occasional sales get more attention and make more money long term I assume.

 

[Puroresu_kid]

Why when enough people will gladly get bumped and pay this.

I still laugh when back in the day so many believed digital games would result in cheaper prices for gamers.

 

[StereoVSN]

Why when enough people will gladly get bumped and pay this.

I still laugh when back in the day so many believed digital games would result in cheaper prices for gamers.

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They are... on Steam... With bunch of external stores available that sell keys.

 

[Jonscrambler]

What's Sony/MS's cut on a $5 game? pretty sure it's not just 30% there's a minimum

 

[collige]

Slashing the prices 50% will not double the amount of sales they're currently

Yeah, even a once a year mega slash would be good, I guess. I'm in the same boat as you. They can either respect the (lack of) value for these old games and put them on sale, and earn some of my money, or they can not bother and get absolutely none of my money.

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OK but then you have to ask yourself how many other people like you who are interested in old PS3 games are willing to buy at a lower price but not a higher one.

 

[Syriel]

Looking at the PlayStation Store (haven't checked MS) and they have digital PS3 games on sale for full price. They don't get included in any sales nowadays because it would just clutter up the more recent games that people are browsing through.

So at full price for a digital game for those generations... Who's paying for that? Absolute minimal people I imagine?

...whereas if they permanently cut the price of games from that gen to £5 I could see way more people going back to things they missed, or things they want to replay but sold their discs for.

I just don't get the point of keeping old games on the store for £40/£50.

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1) Xbox Store has old games on sale all the time.
2) With BC on Xbox One and Xbox Series the "old" games can look and run better than when originally released.
3) Back catalogues have a lot of value. Good games don't go bad as they age.
4) BC means that kids who are experiencing Xbox Series as their first console are a whole new generation of buyers for 360 games.

No one is going to just give that income up for nothing.

 

[Puroresu_kid]

They are... on Steam... With bunch of external stores available that sell keys.

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Yes very true. Even physical games on PC are cheaper. Console gamers get rinsed and we gladly let it happen. Whether it's paying to play online, paying more for digital games than physical versions or the next gen price hikes we just let it happen.

 

[oni-link]

OK but then you have to ask yourself how many other people like you who are interested in old PS3 games are willing to buy at a lower price but not a higher one.

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Why does this matter? It doesn't cost the publisher to put games on sale. There is no risk

If they put a game on sale and no one buys it on sale, they gain nothing but they lose nothing

Sales are only a thing because after a while a games sales start to tale off, and a lower price can boost sales. These old games on consoles that are no longer supported have even less value because most people don't want to dig out older systems to play them, but if they have the system hooked up anyway they might take a punt at it for a fiver, but they probably won't buy a game full price

The fact they could pitch it as a final ever sale would push people into action anyway if it's their last ever chance to get it for a good price

The people saying "They still sell at full price" must have seen some info I'm not aware of because I can't imagine many PS3 digital games are sold at full price each week in the year 2021, but maybe I'm wrong

 

[Chindogg]

Publishers don't want to devalue their catalogs for future remasters or releases. It's the same reason why Nintendo never post their best titles on a deeper sale than $30-40.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

Competitive argument:
They're trying to sell their new shiny game for $70 plus DLC, but if people could instead buy 70 games at $1, they'd probably question the value of new games. At that point, why even make new games?

Maintenance cost argument:
Even doing something as simple as putting a new price on a game will cost quite a lot in terms of man hours. At least a couple of fairly important people probably have to set up a meeting just to decide on it. It might not even be worth it to maybe get a few more sales at those ridiculously low revenue levels. Let's say it costs even $500, and they'd make $0.50 off each of those reduced copies, instead of the $10 or so they'd get for the occasional regular price sales. Can they sell 20 times more just by doing this?

I'm just speculating with a vague understanding of what it actually costs to do, well, anything in business. But here's a simpler one:

Common sense argument:
If it would actually make them money, they would be doing it. They don't, so it wouldn't. Pretty sure major companies have this figured out better than random forum goers.

 

[oni-link]

1) Xbox Store has old games on sale all the time.
2) With BC on Xbox One and Xbox Series the "old" games can look and run better than when originally released.
3) Back catalogues have a lot of value. Good games don't go bad as they age.
4) BC means that kids who are experiencing Xbox Series as their first console are a while generation of buyers for 360 games.

No one is going to just give that income up for nothing.

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I think the Xbox being BC going back several generations puts it in a different spot to consoles like the PS3 and Vita, where games are pretty much stuck on those platforms

Digital 360 games still have a lot of value because they work on current gen systems, and will probably work on next gen systems too, whereas PS3 and Vita games are stuck on those platforms. It makes sense to spend a good amount of money on a 360 game you can play at 4K with no drops, but that's not the case with digital PS3 and Vita games. Buying them full price in 2021 isn't as good a deal, and there must be a lot less people buying them in 2021, so a price drop would probably increase sales

 

[JaseC64]

The whole Vita catalog sits in at full price on psn. No discount, no nothing. Even Sony 1st party games. So I don't buy the "publishers control the pricing" seems to me since it's old catalog of games, they rather keep them at full price and let everyone pay that while the most popular system (ps4 and ps5) will keep getting discounts because they want to compete for your money.

Pretty crappy. I mean I would own the whole vita catalog if they were on sale as hard as ps4 titles. May as well buy a used copy for the same amount that I can keep forever in case they axe the vita store.

 

[oni-link]

Common sense argument:
If it would actually make them money, they would be doing it. They don't, so it wouldn't. Pretty sure major companies have this figured out better than random forum goers.

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It's probably more down to the fact it will make them money, but not enough to justify pulling people away from other tasks

If you have 100 people, and all 100 working on X will make you £5 million, it doesn't make sense to pull 20 of them away for a few weeks to work on Y, which will secure another 100k, at the expense of the that £5m payday being delayed for a few weeks

You do address that as well, I just think that's likely the reason they leave money on the table. They're busy trying to find a table with even more money

 

[ghostcrew]

Why are people in here pretending that a platform holder can't enforce price rules over third party publishers? I'm sure Sony could work out an agreement with all major publishers to sell all extremely old games for cheap.

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They can't enforce it. They could cut a deal or try to convince them but they can't force pubs to reduce the price of their products.

That's like iTunes forcing every band/record label from before 2013 to sell their albums for 50% off. They can't. You set those prices yourself and they can't just sell it for a different price on their whim. It's not their product.

 

[Syriel]

Maintenance cost argument:
Even doing something as simple as putting a new price on a game will cost quite a lot in terms of man hours. At least a couple of fairly important people probably have to set up a meeting just to decide on it. It might not even be worth it to maybe get a few more sales at those ridiculously low revenue levels. Let's say it costs even $500, and they'd make $0.50 off each of those reduced copies, instead of the $10 or so they'd get for the occasional regular price sales. Can they sell 20 times more just by doing this?

Click to shrink...

We figured this out at a previous job when looking at outage costs.

Getting 20+ staff engineers, plus a VP into a meeting for an hour or two (or potentially more) isn't cheap. Not when those folks could be doing other things.