Xbox CFO says “it’s about time” game prices went up, doesn’t commit to 1st party increases

Dave W. Shanahan

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Microsoft believes “it’s about time” prices went up for new game titles on the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X consoles. As described in a gameindustry.biz post, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart, was asked at the Jefferies Interactive Entertainment conference last week whether Microsoft was going to raise the price of its first-party games for the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X consoles.

Stuart declined to respond specifically on Microsoft’s first-party pricing structure, instead choosing to say that there would be an upcoming Xbox announcement “in due time.” The full interview transcript is available via Seeking Alpha.

“From a consumer standpoint, if you’re a game creator, games are getting more expensive to create. They’re driving revenue growth as well, and they’re looking for opportunities to go create more monetization for the support of that content creation. And that’s when you see a little bit of the game pricing going up. So your example is $60 going to $70 on some games. But also, when we think about Game Pass on our side, it’s another outlet for our content creators to go find new users, to find a way to monetize those users that may not have played their games.”

Stuart added that Microsoft will rely on game publishers to “make the right decision for their content,” citing rising game development costs amid the current coronavirus pandemic being one of the major issues that developers face. Stuart remarked that Microsoft has a huge advantage; Xbox Game Pass. Stuart added that the last time games saw a price increase was “7 or 8 years ago or something. So time value of money says, says it’s about time anyway.”

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