Hi, Game, Amazon are playing hard and loose with game prices (£49.99+) for next gen. I remember both MS and Sony coming out and saying that the suggested price will not be higher than what they are right now. What do you think, cash grab from retailers or are we going to see a £10 rise? Not a great prospect going forward, I don't know if I can justify that.

Pretty sure this was the case at the beginning of last gen too. It'll settle down.

@mwng: seconded. Always more expensive at launch and the period after. Past experience would suggest that waiting 6 months is always a good idea when it comes to launch.

I want to say they only said that about the US but I could be wrong. You'll still see that same cash grab from retailers in the first few months that happens with every console launch. After Christmas prices will probably come down but I'm guessing instead of going back down to £39.99 we'll end up with £44.99 on most games and slightly higher with a few.

As for being able to justify it I simply can't. I like games but paying any more than £39.99 just isn't happening. Frankly I've been slowly moving away from playing games over the past few years and any attempt to charge more isn't going to help.

If you think about it though, if you were to include inflation in the price of games, a £40 game in 2005 would cost you £50 today. Plus VAT has gone up 2.5% since then too.

Not that I'm trying to justify a price increase or anything, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if prices did start to creep up some point soon.

Or you could take Wii U games as an example, again, fairly sure they were priced at £50 at launch, and they're already down to £40. Minus the first party titles etc. Hell, GTA V on the 360 will set you back £45 from most retailers at the moment, so I think it's largely dependent on the game too.

Was the same for Wii U titles until about January. Just retailers trying to screw consumers during the hype window.

Not sure if you know this but the RRP on new console games from big studios is between £49.99 and £59.99 right this minute and you can see it in effect on the PSN store when new games are released.

Lower production numbers = higher production costs per unit

The prices will eventually come down after a few months.

The suggested retail price for games in the UK is actually £50 most shops just tend to generally sell them for £40 unless it's a fifa or call of duty which they know they can charge more for.