Does anyone else feel like XBLA is too expensive now?


  

142 members have voted

  1. 1. Is XBLA expensive?

    • Yes
      112
    • No
      15
    • The games are worth the asking price
      15


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To buy Deal of the Week offers you have to be a Gold subscriber and demos are "exclusive" for a week or however long it is for Gold also.

Maybe they mean that.

Otherwise you are free to download what you like on Silver.

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Wow, i didn't know you could buy off Amazon. If it works i may have to buy BF 1943 from it. I don't really like the MS points system.

Sadly, it's US only as far as I can tell =\

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IMO, games like Shadow Complex, TMNT and 1943 (if it worked) are well justified in the 1200 MS price.

TMNT Turtles in Time won't be.

It's not the one with the additional levels. :(

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Yeah, TMNT I can't see me picking that up. Shadow Complex, on the other hand, is a definite buy from me. I hope Alien Breed isn't 1200 points.

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  • 2 weeks later...
504x_CumulativeXBLA_2_.jpg

The average price of Xbox Live Arcade games on the Xbox 360 has risen by a $1.74 since the Xbox 360 launched in November of 2005, according to Kotaku's study of prices for more than 200 XBLA games. Microsoft's annual Summer of Arcade promotion begins today, a five-week event designed to draw attention to new top-flight Xbox Live Arcade games, such as Splosion Man and Shadow Complex. We don't yet know how good these games will be — though we have high hopes. What we do know is that they, as is the trend with XBLA games, will contribute to the rising price tag of games on Microsoft's downloadable service.

Kotaku's Andrew Freedman and I pulled launch prices for the more than 200 Xbox Live Arcade games released since the 360's launch. At the top of this post, you'll see a chart that shows how the average price for downloadable XBLA games on the system has risen steadily in the past 46 months. (Note: The Xbox.com online marketplace lists the launch games for the 360 as being released in October of 2005 even though the system debuted in North America in November. For consistency's sake, we've started our chart at October of that year.)

The average price of an XBLA game in the 360's first month was just under 600 points at about $7.31. That has risen to more than 700 points as of last week, or $9.05. And that's not counting how the average will likely rise again during the Summer of Arcade. Four of the five games offered for the new promotion will run 1200 points.

The second chart Andrew and I made shows which prices have been popular, and which are going out of style. The days of games released for 400 points ($5) are nearly over. The 1200-point price ($15) is increasingly common.

Click graph to enlarge

504x_XBLAfinal.jpg

The size of games offered through XBLA has increased over the years. Several top-quality titles, including Geometry Wars, Braid and Battlefield: 1943 have garnered acclaim.

But if you thought that XBLA was becoming a more expensive service, you're not imagining things.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5320178/

Stat crunching.

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Was going to post this. I see that I'm not the only one thinking this is quite a big problem. I'm all for great games, but lately there has been a ton of **** that was not worth the price tag. I just can't keep throwing my money away at these games, when ideally they are supposed to be cheaper games. Granted they still are, but DLC seems to give you more value.

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Sadly, it's US only as far as I can tell =\

Ah, that sucks.

Interesting article AB. I don't remember the old XBLA games but are the new games that much better than the older games to justify the higher prices? Or is it just a case of more 'bigger' games being released now compared to before?

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I'm not buying a thing from them at all until they get this points mess worked out. I don't mind them selling items in space bucks, if that's what they want to do. But at least sell them in the denominations that they sell the games in, or let me charge the exact price of the game to my CC. I wanted to buy BF1943 the other day and it's 1200 points. Guess what? They only sell points in 1000 or 2000 denominations. I'm not buying 2000 points for a 1200 point game. That's just ridiculous!!!

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No, very very few games are worth the high price. So far MvC2 is the only one worth that amount of points.

That's a matter of opinion. If you don't like the game at that price, then wait for a sale or try to win it on 1v100 instead.

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To me, some games are worth the price. BF 1943 is one of those, for instance. And by the way, what's all this I hear about problems with the game? I've had it since launch and haven't had any issues with it at all. Never had a problem connecting to a game and I've never been disconnected from one either.

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