You may've noticed that things have been rather quiet around here this month.This is due to a powerful combination of travelling around many corners of the country and some seeeeeerious gaming to catch up on my months long xbox 360 down-time.Not that I'm complaining, because in many ways the timing of my consoles red ring was quite fortuitous, as it meant that my flaky wonder console was returned to me just as the huge pile of "November madness" games that I had missed out on over Christmas were hitting the bargain buckets.
and not only that, but the knock on effect meant that older games were being pushed even further down the price scale (Random loose ends like Eternal Sonata, Marvel ultimate alliance and beautiful katamari all recently joined my collection thanks to this)
All told, it's a really good time to be a gamer with a thirst for (slightly) older games.
Then I checked my beloved Xbox live arcade for the first time in months,
credit card in one hand, a lengthy shopping list of XBLA titles and download content that I'd missed out on in the other.
I quickly put my credit card back down.
I just could not bring myself to spend 1200 points on castle crashers
or 1600 pts on the lost and the damned
or 800 pts on Operation: Anchorage
and so it went, down my shopping list of oh-so-eagerly awaited DownLoadable Content.
In the end, I bought the Hollywood cars pack for Burnout paradise
(because I needed etco-1 and the delorian, not because it was cheap)
and a few assorted songs for guitar hero: world tour.
(ZZ Top? hell yes.)
and that's it.
I could not justify spending as much as I'd just spent on full-length mega-budget A-list titles on fun little disposable live arcade games, or small mission & map packs.
How can the world of DLC replace retail (as everyone outside of gamestop expects it to) if the prices are going to remain so painfully stagnant.
there's absolutely zero incentive to go back through the archives and check out something you may've missed.
To date, Microsofts attempts at sales have been ...weak, usually offering much too little, much too late. (giving gold members better offers is definitely a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to either make the older content seem more appealing or to make me feel better about the £4.99 a month I'm paying for something that ps3 users still get for free)
Yet again it falls to Valve's Steam service to show how DLC should be done
with regular and unmissable offers on bundles and individual games.
Would it be too much to ask for the consoles to follow suit
...just a little?
...please?
*Not cheap ass-games, as that would be a very different blog post.
Boy ,I am so out of practice at writing, sorry guys.
Posts
:D Rather topical one here, as I also just read this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-end-of-publishing-article
Although I agree with main premise that older download titles ought to get discounted with age - that does somewhat cause a problem, as the reason some of these games even exist as downloadable content at all is due to the infamous "long tale" sales. Capcom apparently STILL make decent sales on SF2 Hyper Fighting on XBLA - and that will go into them releasing more and more titles one would hope. Basically, without titles like that, HD Remix probably wouldn't have happened.
I also happen to think that whilst most "DLC" is overpriced for crap - I still wouldn't spend a penny on an SF4 "costume pack" ridiculousness, I don't see top XBLA arcade titles as "fun little disposable" games at all! In fact many of my most played games (in terms of hours spent) on my 360 are all XBLA titles is testament to that! When I'm getting as more fun out of a 1200 point XBLA title than a full-price box game, I can't really fault the pricing of the download titles here - quite the opposite. So whilst I'm stunned at the cost of "add on packs" etc at times, I'm equally stunned by comparison as how cheap some amazing XBLA arcade games are.
I'm not a big Steam user, but it in fact I've noticed it gets slated for its pricing structure at times, given that new games cost significantly more than the very same game in the shops - even in a Steam "Sale" sometimes too. Of course the Steam and XBLA/DLC models are completely different, so it's not so easy to compare IMO.
Oh and don't be so sure that PSN get what XBL gets "for free". Talk to any serious fighting game player, and you'll see. If you actually care about the online gaming experience, XBL seems to come out way on top every time, and be worth the extra 'Gold'.. heh... money.