Modern Warfare 2 Gets RRP of £54.99
That’s $90, for our overseas readers. MCV are reporting that developers are having to increase the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of their games for the Christmas season due to a more expensive development process and the changing exchange rates of the strong euro and the weak pound.
It is expected that other releases will follow suit as the issue was raised a few months back when Nintendo raised the price of their hardware because of the depreciating pound. It seems that Activision are the first to confirm such a massive price increase of their games saying that the much anticipated Modern Warfare 2 will carry an RRP of £54.99. Most full-budget releases tend to have RRPs of £44.99 at most
According to THQ’s executive vice president of worldwide publishing;
You can’t continue to trade as normal when the biggest territory in Europe has seen cost of goods increase by 30 per cent due to the strengthening of the Euro. Publishers somehow need to offset this drastic increase in costs. I’m not surprised to see the [Modern Warfare 2] SRP go up and I feel this will continue across more key titles.
As a budget gamer who never pays more than £40 for any game this is a major annoyance for me. Anyone who pays £55 for a regular videogame is a fool. And anyone who pays the RRP of a game needs to look harder. But as the RRP increases it will pull the price of cheaper games up with it. My cheap-as-chips £35 purchases are likely to end up around the £40 mark. I can understand the reasons for this price hike but asking customers to pay £10 more than they usually would is going to noticeably affect the sales figures, especially when people consider the inevitable DLC. For that very reason I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the price come down before the game’s release.
Via: MCV.
The sad thing is that your “cheap” 35 pound payment is the norm in USA. Utter bullshit from Activision.
New (console) games in Germany and France have been priced @ 60-70€ (that´s 84-98$ or 52-60 pound) for years.
…
I´ll have to stop importing games from the uk.
Just think of poor old Australia!
Actually the RRP for new games is generally £50, so this isn’t as big a hike as some people are making out. Also no-one is going to sell it for £55, I’ll be surprised if the supermarkets sell for more than £40.
I dread to see the price of the version with those night vision goggles. Best check the credit ratings, methinks.
Well done Activision. No sale. I refuse to pay more than £35 for a game, and most I pick up around the twenty quid mark. £55 is a bloody joke.
So the consumer has to be squeezed tighter in the wallet so the companies don’t have to be? Seems the wrong way round to me.
God, Australian’s are already paying up to $120 for one game.
Hilariously, EA is not going to up the pricing. Activision is now officially the ultimate douchebag of publishers.