17-05-2025
Former PlayStation exec says "$70 or $80" games are a "steal": "As long as people choose carefully how they spend their money, I don't think they should be complaining"
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It feels to me like the closer we get to the Nintendo Switch 2's June launch and the, apparently, $80 games associated with it, the more people are fighting with themselves over what is and isn't worth it. But at least Sony veteran and previous head of PlayStation Indies Shuhei Yoshida is free from inner turmoil – he thinks relatively expensive, high quality video games are unequivocally necessary.
Speaking to Critical Hits Games in a video interview during the recent Gamescom Latam, Yoshida says "when you look at life in general, other products in price have increased, you know, way more than the game price. So I think it was almost too late for the video game companies to start looking at the pricing structure."
"I don't believe that every game has to be priced the same," Yoshida continues. "Each game has different value it provides, or the size of budget. I totally believe it's up to the publisher – or developers self-publishing – decision to price their product to the value that they believe they are bringing in."
Nintendo openly shares this mindset, as current Nintendo of America product experience VP Bill Trinen told IGN in April: "We just look at each individual game and we look at the content and the value of that game, and then we say, 'what is the right price for the value of this entertainment?'" The developer elected to price its strange Switch 2 tutorial, Welcome Tour, at $10 – instead of making it free like PlayStation's comparable Astro's Playroom.
Yoshida continues to say that, "In terms of actual price of $70 or $80, for really great games, I think it will still be a steal in terms of the amount of entertainment that the top games, top quality games bring to people compared to other form of entertainment."
"As long as people choose carefully how they spend their money," he continues, "I don't think they should be complaining."
"I don't know" how much Borderlands 4 will cost, Gearbox boss says, but it had "more than twice the development budget for Borderlands 3" and "it might be" $80 like some Nintendo and Xbox games.
