A hot potato: Former PlayStation US boss Shawn Layden has just given his opinion on some of the more controversial aspects of the video game industry, including pricing. He believes that the price of titles should have increased every generation to cover the higher budgets of AAA releases, partly to prevent stagnating innovation.
The price of video games remains one of the most contentious issues in the industry. Companies want to push big releases up to $80, but consumer outrage and publishers' fear of reprisals have kept the majority of AAA titles at $70.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Layden notes that the price of premium games has remained pretty much consistent over the last 20 years. $70 became the standard for big-budget console games around late 2020, and it had been $60 for roughly 15 years before then.
Layden said the reason prices haven't risen significantly over the last two decades despite game budgets climbing ever higher is "because everyone's afraid."
"No one wants to be the first one to raise the price, because you're afraid to lose traffic. So what you do is you just end up eating into your operating income, your profit margin."
"I think it's going to be harder for innovation to occur at that price point"
"There were more sports cars in the parking lot in the PS1 era than there were in the PS4 era, because if you're selling 20 million units at $60 for something that only cost you $10 million to make, that's different than selling 20 million units at $60 for something that cost you $160 million to make."
Layden believes the price of games should have gradually increased with every new console generation, instead of the industry believing "as long as we grow, even though we're not making money, somehow we can't die."
The former Sony exec said we've now reached a point where game budgets are so high, companies need to sell millions of copies to make the money back. And "unless you're Rockstar, [you] should not expect to sell 25 million units."
Layden does note that companies have been using other tactics to squeeze more money out of gamers, "moving the median price point up." This includes deluxe and collectors editions of titles that can cost over $100. These usually come with in-game bonuses like skins and weapons that have "an almost zero cost" to make. Then there's all the DLC, microtransactions, battle passes, season passes, and so on.
Dear Galactic Citizens! We have received your SOS via skip drone about the pricing. As an organization devoted to making sure that corporations do not go unfettered, we at the Earth Directorate have worked with [REDACTED] to revise the price of The Outer Worlds 2.
– Obsidian (@obsidian.net) 23 July 2025 at 15:02
[image or embed]
There has been plenty of pushback against $80 games. The Outer Worlds 2 was supposed to be Microsoft's debut first-party Xbox game to carry this price, but the company backtracked, reducing it to $70 and promising all full-priced holiday releases would carry the same price tag. Elsewhere, Borderlands 4 and Battlefield 6 will both be $70 despite rumors they would land with an $80 price. But one company that isn't changing is Nintendo. First-party Switch 2 releases such as Mario Kart World are $80.
Layden claims that keeping games at $70 stifles innovation as studios are less willing to take risks. However, it was reported in May that the best-reviewed titles of the year so far were Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Split Fiction, and Blue Prince, all of which cost $50 or less. Coincidentally, Clair Obscur had sold 3.3 million units by its 33rd day of release – and it's on Game Pass.
As we all know, huge budgets don't always equal massively successful games. Concord, which cost between $200 million and $400 million, was so unpopular that it shut down two weeks after launch.Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Skull and Bones, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard also fell short of expectations when it came to sales.
Image credit: Yeneika Quintana