Xbox Digital download pricing

In the UK, on the Xbox store, Assasins Creed: Black Flag, Titanfall, Cod Ghosts, Battlefield 4, Fifa 14 and more are all £54, this is $92 US, how is this acceptable? Downloading digital games for the Xbox One is more expensive than buying the discs, but
there is no physical product to manufacture, no distribution costs and no middle men. These should be CHEAPER than in store discs, I cannot comprehend how you find it fine to repeatedly screw over UK players, this is ridiculous. The question im asking is,
what happened to your "competetive pricing" assertions at the start of the year? Given up? Happy overcharging?

Xbox Live's Major Nelson hints at 'competitive pricing' for digital downloads | TechRadar

All Ryse cheaper Xbox One downloads! Microsoft 'testing' reduced digital prices | TechRadar

:)

 

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"

 

Digital vs Disc - Discussion

I want to go all digital but pricing is preventing me to do so. No way I am paying full price for a digital download.

 

It is horrendous I know, but what can we do? The only option is buy disc and buy digital when its sometimes cheaper.

 

I'm going to go there..... what are the DD prices on the competitions console? Is it just Xbox or is it the cost of living in the UK???

 

It's not something I agree with, but why is this all Microsoft's fault? You do realise that the publisher also has a huge say on how much their digital content is sold for right? And that it is the publishers decision on what the digital price will be?
When you buy a digital game, Microsoft only takes a cut, not the whole amount. Plus, £10 of that £54 goes to the UK Treasury as VAT.

 

At the start of this generation, before the U-turns on Always Online and Family sharing in the name of DRM (which i'm not complaining about) Microsoft was pushing for a digital only future, even with rumours of a console without a disc drive. Why would I
spend these exuberant amounts of money to digitize my library. Imagine if these U-turns didnt happen and the only way to buy games was online or at rrp (no used games)Family sharing would be necessary because i would litterally have to band together with friends
and family to buy a game. Near enough $100? i mean come on.

If you buy a digital game you 1.) Cant trade it in 2.) Cant give it to friends 3.) Might not even like it but you're stuck with it (no give back after a few days or e.g it was the wrong present for a friend) My core motivation lies in the fact that I DO
want to digitize my library, I WANT to buy more digital download games, I WOULD buy digital games but i simply cant afford it. Im not asking for them to be Cheaper than exchange stores but "competetive pricing" and the simply fact that as digital products
they shouldnt be as expensive as they are.

Obsessive Power: I'm blaming Microsoft's because they promised "competitive prices." Also who would you rather me go to? Ubisoft? Also that doesn't stop them reducing the price of Microsoft studios games. E.g Forza and Indies.

Money:

I realise that in many cases PS4 is just as bad in terms of digital download prices but thats no excuse, be the first company not to cheat UK players, we already payed $600 for the box that's been gathering dust for a year while you still try to make the
console you advertised us.

Not only that but the "Games with Gold" deals and Gold Deals in general have been just pathetic, 25% off of an already crazily priced 6 month old game doesn't make it a good price. compare them to the competition (you know who i'm talking about) and Xbox
users (especially in the UK but globally in general) are being just as badly milked for money. AND Xbox Music Pass MORE MONEY, i know ps4 is getting similar flak for not letting people play their own music as they could last generation. But thats no reason
why Xbox shouldn't make this a priority.

 

I understand they're attempting to take as much money from each person as they can, I really do, its business. But i'm asking as a consumer for Microsoft to have mercy.

Xbox buyers in the UK have been willing to pay this crazy amount of money because: 1.) They don't know how badly overpriced compared to the rest of the world. 2.) They are FANS and freely admit they like the system and the company because of the memories
we have of previous systems. 3.) They were attracted by the console that they were promised.

(I keep feeling the need to make the distinction between the console we were promised and the thing we have been dealing with for the past year)

 

If people stop buying games (at higher prices) they will have to lower the prices, or go out of business. Somebody must be buying at those prices, otherwise they would be forced to lower them. It really is that simple.

 

The actual cost of the bluray, the case and the manual is a tiny fraction of the price of the game, even the shipping costs aren't that much.

Pretty much all of those costs is eaten up by the cost of hosting the game, paying for the bandwidth, and the maintenance of the server farms.

If at the end of the day you don't want to pay for the download version, buy the hard copy, you still have the choice.

 

Obviously! I can and I will buy used games for 30 quid from the exchange, then I can bring them to a friend/give them away/trade them in myself etc. Besides I'm not the kind of person to spend that much on a game anyway, especially immediately after I've
just picked up 10 games in the steam summer sale.

And, like I acknowledged, why WOULD they lower prices when people are buying the games at these prices? But Microsoft keep saying they're watching the forums and listening to feedback so it seems to me that the only way to make a change and keep this on
the agenda is to keep talking about it and let UK gamers know they they're paying so much more than the rest of the world. Awareness is key.

There does seem to be a massive misstep in what Microsoft wants to happen and what they're doing (if anything) to make that happen.

 

There are several threads about it on feedback section.i guess they are already aware.

 

@Tarantula Its interesting you bring up the U-Turns when. If MS hadn't U-turned, you could simply buy the physical disc and have it function as a digital copy. Effectively digitizing your game library on Xbox One at a lower cost to you while still having
the ability to trade it in if you wanted too.

I've said before that the supposed "victory" over always online and DRM has done nothing but cost us money and time.

"Lets win a battle against the machine by feeding it MORE money" Gamer logic at its finest!!!

 

this old chestnut again, ill say it like I always do, digital distribution costs more than disc, bandwidth costs a fortune, take a game at 40GB and that gets downloaded approx. 40.000 times = 1563TB that is a lot of data and that is just one game to 40 thousand
people, if it is a very popular game and they sell 100.000 digital copies = 3907TB - get the drift. digital will always be expensive if the cost of bandwidth is high. you also pay for the convenience.

 

First off, the publishers set the digital prices on xbox and playstation. Secondly, as long as games are sold at retail the digital games will always be high(same price at retail) because they would undercut the retailers and retailers would stop selling
games and/or the consoles making everyone lose money. Also retailers sell other products so they can mark games or various products down in price so they can sometimes be cheaper for the disc then for digital download. Steam can get away with it because almost
no pc games are sold at retail.