Digital pricing and other gripes with Xbox one

so I have ended up with an Xbox one and I'm kind of happy with it but there are a few bugbears that I just can't seem to shake, the first of which is digital game pricing. Why on earth we are expected to pay for a game at full boxed retail price is beyond
me when there has been no actual cost to manufacture a physical copy nor any of the fees associated with distribution. And handling fees that retailers take. Furthermore how *** off was I when on the launch of Titanfall I decide to buy a digital copy of the
game at 12.01am so as I could play first thing only to find the leading high street video game retailer in the UK was actually selling the game at £44.99 a whole ten pounds less even with all the associated costs included prior to the game even getting to
store, pure greed is all I can attribute this to and it doesn't stop there, every single game across the store is priced at full RRP. Speaking if RRP when did the cost of producing a game go up so much that it's now acceptable to charge £54.99-£59.99 fora.
Single game? You can not tell me that the production of a game effectively a high resolution port of a 360/ps3 game cost that much more to produce, how do I know? Because the PC has done it for years and years and even manage to sell at £34.99 no expensive
royalties to pay to Microsoft or Sony I understand but my point still stands and I feel we are all being ripped off.

Games library, where are he options? I get it, quiet release schedule and all that in the spring but omg, there are virtually no Xbox live arcade games to compensate. the PS4 not only has more but is giving a Game away free games every month to subscribers,
I keep hearing games for gold is coming "soon" same old story since November last year, what exactly are we paying for again? To play online? Yep I can do that on PC and PS3 already for free, to be advertised to? *** I can switch the TV on for that.

Instability. my xbox one so far has been shall we say erratic when it comes to being stable, at this very moment in time I am having trouble loading assassins creed 4 but this is in no way limited to this game, killer instinct, xbox fitness (still yet to
work) and kinetic sports rivals have all had non loading or freezing issues as have several of the apps including but not limited to Twitch TV

in summary it would seem that I'm really not happy with the xbox one, that's not the case I do enjoy it but there are some serious issues that need addressing and 4 months after launch I don't feel the system offers me anything over my xbox 360, I don't
even think the graphics are that great but understand that first generation titles often are just lazy upscaled ports or rushed out, I'm looking forward to the year ahead Asa. Game and hope that many hours are on the xbox one.

:)

 

Xbox one

Digital Games will get cheaper:

Microsoft conducting Xbox One digital pricing experiment with Ryse sale

More competitive pricing for Xbox One downloads is "on the agenda"

 

Will we EVER get decent pricing for digital games from Microsoft (UK)?

If you look at MS published games, their pricing is in line with retailer pricing. Other games such as COD, BF, Destiny are published by 3rd parties hence the price disparity.

Long story short, publishers are sticking it to my UK friends with digital prices. Its like they go out of their way to ensure you guys dont buy digital.

 

Hi Digital

Dis you know that digital game can be played by anybody in your family list without having to buy it, it will never scratch, and you can swap between games without having to find said disk. Thats just now, in the future they look like they will bring back
sharing to none family and selling back digital games. Thats worth a few extra quid surely ?

You do get discounts after a while (ryse for example dropped it's price)

Live is the best online experience around, that is what you pay for, and the constant improvements to the whole network and all of its app functions not just the ability to play online. Thats got to be worth a couple of quid a month

I am afraid all my games work fine, except BF4 which sometimes does not load properly, but surely that is the fault of DICE as other games such as titanfall is perfect.

Does PS4 really have free games already ? hopefully as you have said G4G should come along soon.

 

TBH there are MAJOR costs in retailing a digital copy.. first off.. you still have to make the game... same as physical.... second off you still have to market the game.. same as physical.... now... sure getting the discs made as to just downloading it...
might seem like a huge difference.. and your name even being a form of digital... I wonder how much is cost to get server to hold the game... and allowing access to thousands of players to DL.. and to make sure the server is running properly... and to make
sure nothing goes wrong... etc etc etc...

 

I save $5 from taxes with DD not to mention gas for my vehicle. GameStop, Walmart etc is like 40 miles roundtrip for me.

 

Servers aren't free so distribution isn't.

 

But, if Steam can have cheaper price tags on games, why can't the XBL marketplace? and I'm not just on about indie games.

 

They have already begun testing out price drops for digital, Ryse i believe was the first. Based on increase of sales under the price drop, more could come. There is also a rumor that disc based games (on consoles) will get slightly more expensive while
digital will stay as is, so if that happens then digital will be the cheaper option.

And as people have said, there are costs for having digital available too.

The reason there is no arcade games is that the ID@Xbox developer program has just been presented, at this years GDC. But there are 250+ developers already working on that as we speak so we should have lots of stuff to come.

 

The digitals do go on sale. Tomb Raider was on for $30, instead of the regular $60. Just need to keep a eye out for these deals....

 

[quote user="DiGi7AL"]Why on earth we are expected to pay for a game at full boxed retail price is beyond me[/quote]The physical costs associated with a game are low (4-5% of the $60 USD price).

Brick and Mortar retail (GameStop, Best Buy, etc) would pull retail disc games from stores if the digital price undercut the physical price. While downloads are nice, physical is still where it's at.

That's a UK issue. In the USA, the pricing was the same.

The "$10" reduction on PC titles was done as a bone thrown to PC gamers in exchange for trading game ownership for license ownership.

Games are games. There's no longer an "Arcade" distinction.

Free doesn't matter if it's not something you want
to play. To date, I haven't played more than a couple hours of the "free" PS+ games. And they're not free. If your PS+ sub lapses, the games stop working.

Post
in the Xbox One support forum.

 

Digital games are not really any cheaper on PS4 - although it is true that you get a lot more free games from them and they have a larger selection of indies (which are cheap or sometimes free). The PS plus provides a greater value in this sense then xbox
gold but that's not new and not really specific to the one.

 

It is the shear amount of bandwidth needed for game distribution, a game like cod downloaded say 100.000 times take a staggering 4200TB of bandwidth and that is just one game at a size of say 42GB. bandwidth can cost more than a postage stamp. It is there
for convenience and to eventually cut discs and all piracy that comes with physical media.

 

@BHC Bluez

Steam has deeper price cuts because they have competition and that's what we are missing on the One. We need to see third party retailers selling codes similar to what Amazon is doing with PS codes.

Library isn't big enough on the next gen consoles to see a huge difference at this time but it could make a huge difference on 360 games. MS sales have improved but they are still lagging behind everyone else.

 

I honestly like the disc based games. Don't get me wrong, I also like the digital download as well. I have 2 xbox consoles, one in my room and one in the living room. I usually opt to buy the disc so I can play in either room for certain occasions. If they
found a way where I could DL the game on both of MY consoles for one price, then I would be interested in the digital.

As for the price of digital vs physical, the physical cost to produce a disc and game case is very minimal. I am okay with paying the same. Like Endless said, you have taxes and a trip cost to the store to buy the physical copy.