After putting a premium price of $70 on Dragon’s Dogma 2, Capcom is now contemplating reviewing its pricing for future AAA titles.
Capcom, in response to a question on the topic of pricing policy, during a financial results conference call Q&A summary, responded by saying that as the “industrywide development costs are rising,” they are considering a “price review as an option”.
But while profit is a big deal for a business-centric entity such as Capcom, it still considers the consumers when tackling the issue of pricing. “Ultimately, we intend to take a thoughtful approach in pricing our games while ascertaining user feedback”.
For a company whose head, President Haruhiro Tsujimoto, thinks that the prices of video games were “too low,” seeing Capcom follow the trend comes off as hardly surprising. That is, with the justification that increasing the price would be a “healthy option” for the industry.
In that same speech, during the Tokyo Game Show, Tsujimoto said that the development costs of video games have increased by “100 times” in comparison to the “Famicom era”. Despite this, he claims that the price of video games has not changed that much.
Although the idea of a price hike seems like bad timing during a recession, Tsujimoto believes that it’s irrelevant. “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.
