With the launch of their respective next-gen consoles and digital stores, Sony and Microsoft have been criticised for downloadable game pricing that is more expensive than retail.
This is true across all PSN regions, including South Africa – MyGaming previously looked at the price differences, which can be as much as R250 in some cases.
Speaking to Eurogamer, UK PlayStation head Fergal Gara offered an explanation.
“First of all, we want to support a healthy retail channel, so it’s not in our interest to go and seriously undermine retail,” said Gara.
Gara said that retailers are known to price games below the recommended retail price to attract customers, and this is true of both high-street retail and online retail.
“We don’t set the pricing. So if they decide on some crazy low prices they’d like to charge their customers, that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for the PlayStation Store to match or follow that price. These are effectively all independent retailers,” said Gara.
Gara said that digital game pricing will probably come down over time, being equivalent to the physical retail price.
Gara added that for third-party titles on the PSN store, the publisher also has a large say in the final pricing, and so he did not want to comment on third=party game pricing.
Source: Eurogamer
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If I’m not mistaken PSN pricing in South Africa is also more expensive than in Europe and the USA. For example the upcoming Assetto Corsa racing game pre-order price is just over R800 on the UK PSN, but over R1000 on our local PSN. Even if we’re priced according to the Eurozone, howcome we pay more than the country with the strongest currency?