REACTION - Games industry pricing continues to be weird as Dualsense controllers go up in price
Explain your logic, Sonny Jim.
By Jonathan Garrett
09/09/24
There just seems to be nothing safe from the onslaught of odd publisher decision making these days. Whether it’s a PR blunder, bizarre cancellation, or tone deaf move, the games industry has seen a raft of corporate mismanagement and silliness in a concentrated period. Sony are no exception, with a small increase to the cost of standard and special coloured Dualsense controllers now beginning to take effect.
Make it make sense! Years into the gen, with a likely reveal for the PS5 Pro on the cusp of dropping, and now it costs £5 more to buy another controller for PlayStation 5. Manufacturing costs must be the factor, because otherwise this is a nonsense move that squeezes even more revenue from an already savaged player base who are subjected to questionable monetisation practices at every turn.
As premium single game purchases and subscription prices also continue to mount, one could reasonably speculate that a saturation point is approaching. This could be where growth starts to plateau, which is certainly evident when even the traditional sure fire PlayStation first party can rethink something as high profile as Concord. Price increases like this are not the way to secure good will.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
