Well, this is a welcome surprise. Today, at the Dead Rising 2 panel at Comic-Con, Capcom Executive Producer Keiji Inafune revealed that Dead Rising 2: Case Zero--the downloadable prequel to the upcoming Dead Rising 2-- would be released on August 31 for the low price of 400 Microsoft Points ($5.00).
That's... way lower than I was anticipating paying for this thing. After seeing Case Zero at E3 this year, Ryan said he expected to pay $15 for the game, but actively considered that Capcom might try and sell it for as much as $20, given that the game uses the same tech and graphics engine as the proper Dead Rising 2. But, according to Kotaku's coverage of the Dead Rising panel at the panel, Capcom isn't trying to recoup development costs on Case Zero.
"We're not making any money on this," Inafune said during today's Comic-Con panel for the game. "I went against the company's wishes and went for the 400 MSP price point."
Like Bionic Commando Rearmed before it, Capcom is using Dead Rising 2: Case Zero as a way to offer game players a low-cost game that might help to stoke interest in the proper retail product. But by only charging five bucks for its downloadable game (I'm no money-man, but that's the kind of pricing I would call "aggressive"), Capcom seems like it's willing to do whatever they can to introduce players to the world of Dead Rising by any means necessary. Regardless of the reasoning motivating the price, $5.00 seems like a steal for Case Zero, and it just became a lot easier to become a willing participant in Capcom's marketing plan.