Resident Evil and Monster Hunter studio Capcom is unhappy with the current price of video games. Even after a recent price hike for video game software, Capcom president and COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto wants to raise prices even more.
Speaking at Tokyo Game Show, via Nikkei, Tsujimoto claimed that the current cost of game development doesn’t match the price of video game software. Despite sales of game software being higher than ever before, the Capcom COO wants prices to be raised.
"Personally, I feel that game prices are too low," Tsujimoto said. “Development costs now are about 100 times more than they were during the Famicom era, but software prices haven't gone up to that extent.”
The Capcon President explained that game price increases would also allow the company to increase wages for its creators. With Capcom one of the few game companies yet to adopt the Sony-started $70 RRP of new games, new games from the studio could adopt this largely-criticised price.
“There's also a need to raise wages in order to attract talent. Seeing as wages are rising in the industry as a whole, I think raising unit prices is a healthy business model," the Capcom president explained.
Capcom’s insistence on the $60 pricetag has even spread to its mobile releases. While mobile games typically have lower prices than any other platform, Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Village cost $60 on the iPhone 15 Max devices. However, with the vast majority of mobile gamers unwilling to spend money on premium video games, this huge price could prove to be an issue for the recent iPhone port.
Technically, Tsujimoto’s statements on the price of video games is accurate. Game prices haven’t increased since the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System. In fact, games releasing on the Nintendo 64 could cost more than games do today with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time costing $80 on launch.
However, with games selling far more units per release than ever before, there are more sales at the current RRP than during the Famicom days by an exorbitant amount. While some games still fail, and by that margin are much higher failures, the average success still brings in more money.