Microsoft experiments with cheaper digital pricing

Via eurogamer:

Microsoft has said it will respond to requests for

cheaper Xbox One digital game prices with a

series of tests, starting tomorrow with Ryse: Son

of Rome.

The game will cost $39.99 (likely around £29.99

in the UK) from the 18th - 24th February, with a

further sale on add-on content next week.

"Lot of people asked for better deals on our

digital marketplace, so we're testing some,"

Microsoft studio manager Mike Ybarra explained

via Twitter (thanks, Total Xbox ).

"That's far better than the used price at

GameStop and others! Go digital!"

Ybarra added that he was "99.9 per cent sure"

that the deal would be available in the UK, too.

The sale will lead up to the 28th February launch

of the next major slice of Ryse DLC, the Mars'

Chosen Pack,

The expansion will add a new Survival Mode to

the game, plus new maps and a character skin.

In Microsoft's words , it will be "the most

ambitious and robust add-on to date".

Microsoft mouthpiece Major Nelson hinted in

January that more competitive digital game

pricing was "indeed on the agenda".

--

I think that's good and will increase the relevance of digital distribution, after all people must have grown tired of being milked digitally for so long on consoles last gen. I hope the experiment is successful and they'll realize games get massive sale spikes if priced reasonably.

Well if they keep it like that I will go digital only for sure.

Good on Microsoft for this (and I don't say that often). There's no reason digitally distributed games should cost full retail. There's no packaging (disk cases, printed materials), no physical media (disks), and severely reduced cost for distribution channels (no shipping, nobody stocking shelves, etc). There's also no used market for digitally distributed games.

Here's to hoping Sony follows suit.

I don't own an Xbox One yet but a $39.99 price point for digital games sounds very reasonable. I would certainly buy more digital games at that price.

Man has a point.

Nothing but a good thing.

I only buy physical copies.

Excellent to hear. Hope the reception from gamers encourages them to continue and expand the program, and it forces the other consoles into something similar.

Okay?

I hope this goes well because I would go all digital in a hot second if I could get the games cheaper.

Do I to enter a credit card or can I buy points?

the problem with digital games unless they are dirt cheap from steam sales is i can always sell a physical copy. lets say i buy a game for £50 and complete it within 10 days i can either return it or sell it for at least £35 which is still quite a lot cheaper than digital copy.

credit card. points system is gone or u can pay by paypal aswell

Lets see it right away with new games starting with TitanFall next month, then MS will have my attention. Doesn't do too much for me with 3 month old launch games.

you can purchase MS money cards from most stores now it works just like ms points but its numercial value now they got rid of points, you can enter a credit card and load up cash on your account that way and its far easier to remove your credit card now from xbox live.

My friends, we have steam.

@WilliamRLBaker: Awesome thanks.

I would be all for a digital only console if we had Steam like prices. I think that was the primary reason for the backlash when M$ announced no used games, that they would never allow such a thing. Games are always so much cheaper on the PC. I remember seeing Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite on sale a while back for like $15 on Steam while the PS3 and 360 versions were close to $40. If game prices dropped in half there would be no problem with getting rid of used games.

Yeah it would be nice if it was for ALL games and not for LIMITED TIME...

The reason is price-matching.

That's why digital retailers use sales to lower prices rather than just flat out lowering prices across the board.

If a game is $50 retail at Walmart, and $40 digital on Steam, Walmart will sell the game for $40. So instead devs choose to sell the game for $50 at both places, but you can get 10-20% off preorder price by going digital, and a few months later there will be a big sale that retail places can't compete with.

But Steam, and other digital marketplaces, can't just straight up undercut Walmart, and other retail stores, like that. MS isn't doing it either. They're just putting Ryse on sale until the end of February.

It would be nice if MS mimics Steam, and has massive holiday sales, and daily deals, and weekly deals, and preorder sale prices, and all that. I'm still not under the idea that buying digital on any console is a good idea though. There seems to be absolutely no security in those purchases.

yes I agree.

Diskless sku incomming?

what ryse please microsoft if you wanna your test success sell forza 5 or dr3 for $39

Looks like they are finally taking a page from Sony's book. Good on them for once.

Sony's games priced at 40 dollars or less were considered "gimp" games despite high reviews because of a misconception that cheaper games were not complete games. But I guess this piece of fine ass had already been considered a 60 dollar game.

Testing? Testing deals? What the **** does that even mean?

I think they're spinning it as they're listening to people rather than lack of sales.

Was waiting on a price drop for this game digitally. I have about $100 in MSoft cards just sitting gathering dust.

The best deal right now is to buy Xbox gift cards at a discount. You can find them online for around 15% to 20% off regularly. I paid $82 for $100 in Xbox gift cards a couple of weeks back.

Well said. And I agree. Good on someone to start it somewhere.;

$400 dollars to best buy. Question. White Xbox one or titanfall bundle?

LMAO. You got it backwards buddy. Sony drops prices on games on PSN all the time. Microsoft is the one playing catch up with reducing prices compared to PSN. Get out of here because you obviously don't own a PS3 or PS4. Also, they don't drop the prices of newer games for only a week. They stick with the price drop forever on PSN.

Consumer choice is the right way to go, and digital should always be cheaper.

Interesting. DD on consoles has been underwhelming. Good that they're taking steps towards making this better.

Hopefully this will catch on. I was always for the price cut to be passed on to the consumer. Tragically, full priced digital games have gone on too long.

So this is like playstation plus sale. Console maker need to have cheaper digital game at launch to work, not later when game is $30 used.

I don't like white consoles at all. So I would go for whichever one is not white.

lol, no. those ps4 games were disk based...not downloadable games. their prices sunk because theyre crap games.

I want to buy ryse but only at bargain bin prices. I love buying digital but the price should be bargin bin, 39.99 is still too high. I will only pay full price digital if I can not get the game in my country, or if the game is sold out for months, ie Pokemon X.

What about a cheaper digital Titanfall for 55.

Thank you Valve!

uhh..BONER! I have only been buying digital versions of games on Xbox One. Its just easier and you technically get two copies if you have two consoles in your home. I bought Ryse digitally, hated having to hassle with the disc and sold it for $45 so thats perfect to re-buy it.

Now, if they could just work out a digital buy back program. I'd like to have the option to lose the rights to a game for a certain amount of credit. Say two months have COD Ghosts releases let me sell it back for $15-$20

MS has my attention now. If they release a sku without kinect I'll buy one.

Digital copy is $90 in Australia. I bet they drop it to $70 and make like they're doing some fantastic discount...that's if they even drop it at all here cos they haven't dropped the price yet anyway.

I'm a total Cow...I only own a PS3 and will only own a PS4 when I finally go next gen. I just haven't spent hardly any time on PSN.

I've bought a few games on PSN (NBA 2K13, GTA V, Ratchet and Clank HD Collection and a few other PS2 games), and with the exception of the PS2 games, I paid $60 for the PS3 games I bought.

NO digitally distributed game should cost the same as physical.

I've been buying digitally for the Xbox One as I could share them with my bro, so we could play these games on our own consoles even at the same time on our own profiles. You can't do that with a PS4. So far so good.

How does this sharing digitally bought games on Xbone work?

How does this sharing digitally bought games on Xbone work?

This would have to be the best idea MS has brought to the gaming market in a while. I congratulate them on not being the douchebags for once. Since Steam has completely destroyed consoles when it comes to pricing it would be awesome to see consoles become competitive. Sony would be wise to follow suit with their digital releases because this action is guaranteed to net microsoft a TON of sales.

@Salt_The_Fries: http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/games/my-home-xbox

You basically set your Xbox the "Home Xbox" using your "framily's" (friend or family) profile. And they can use your profile and set it as their "Home Xbox". So when you're on your Xbox using your own profile and you buy something digital, your purchases could be accessed on their Xbox since that's set as the Home Xbox using your profile. Vice versa. They can and other people on the Xbox can play what was purchased using their own profiles. Once the Home Xbox switch is set, you don't need to sign on each others profiles anymore. There will be a Cloud logo for what purchases were made that it's not downloaded on your Xbox. Hope that made sense. Game sharing was suppose to be up to 7 but people were whining so it's just 2 now.