Fact 1: Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox announced this week that it will sell “some” of its upcoming video games for $80 — a hike from the previous standard price of $70, which itself was a hike from $60 just a few years ago. This comes in the wake of Nintendo Co.’s announcement last month that the new Mario Kart game for Switch 2 will be $80.
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Fact 2: The three highest-reviewed video games of 2025 so far, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic, are Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Blue Prince and Split Fiction. Those games cost, respectively, $50, $30 and $50.
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Perhaps it’s a coincidence that the best-rated games of the year just happen to be budget titles. But I think the two facts above point to something else — a critical flaw in the video-game industry’s operations that has contributed to its plateaued growth and widespread layoffs.
I’d hardly call $50 games “budget titles.” Is paying $30 for a meal at a steakhouse a budget meal just because that high-class $50 a plate reservation-only place exists?
I agree that price doesn’t equal quality, but I don’t feel so good about trying to normalize AAA $50 games as “budget titles.” And the link to the article is broken, so I am not sure what the greater context and points of the article are.
Budget title is definitely a stretch, but I think that was just poor word choice - the fact that those three games are less than the typical “AAA” price of $60 I think really proves their point that gamers by and large are choosing cheaper games — it’s the industry trying to push premium priced games.
Just so you have more reference. Original link is in OP’s link, but I think they had too many tracking arguments in the URL so wayback didn’t work. Always test before going live!
Original Article
Working Archive Link