In a statement provided to IGN today, Microsoft disclosed that, in line with other publishers, the price of new first-party games coming out in 2023 will increase from $60 to $70. These video games were created especially for the Xbox Series S|X.
According to a Microsoft representative, the cost of these titles is in line with their scope, technical difficulty, and content. They will also be accessible with Game Pass on the same day they go on sale, just like all games created by our teams at Xbox.
As was already mentioned, Microsoft is not the first publisher to raise the cost of new game releases. Take-Two was the first to do so with NBA 2K21, but Activision Blizzard (starting with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War) and Sony (with launch titles like the Demon’s Souls remake) quickly followed.
Then, Microsoft resisted for an additional two years before finally giving in. Phil Spencer, the head of gaming, recently made this claim in a live interview with the Wall Street Journal.
I do believe that eventually we’ll need to increase the prices for some items, but for this holiday, we felt it was important to keep the prices the same.
The majority of people thought he was referring to either console prices or Game Pass subscription costs, but it appears that the price of individual games will increase first. We’ll check to see if there are any upcoming price increases.
Forza Motorsport, Red fall, and Starfield are Microsoft first-party releases that have been officially announced for 2023. There are also games like Ara: History Untold and Minecraft Legends, but they might be exempt from this new rule since the former is only available on PC and the latter is only available on older consoles. Between Avowed, Contraband, and Sauna’s Saga: Hell blade II, it’s possible that at least one will release before the end of 2023.
