Wonderin’ why Shadowrun costs more on the 360 than the PC?
Let’s pretend for a moment you were excited about the upcoming shooter, Shadowrun. If you actually ARE excited, that’s a plus, but for now let’s just pretend. You BETA’d Shadowrun during the Halo 3 hype, and you are all ready to slap down the $50 on the Xbox 360 version.
Well, my friends, I’m sorry to inform you that you’d be $10 short. Turns out, the 360 version of Shadowrun willrun us a cool $60, while the PC version of the game will run you only $50. Now, if you have yourself a pretty beefy PC like me (3.6GHz P4, 2GB RAM, 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600), you would just save the ten dollars and pick up the PC version, I would imagine. After all, the Xbox 360 version offers nothing that the PC version doesn’t offer as well.
So, why the price differential? Newsweek asked Shane Kim that very question, and this is what he had to say:
Since Microsoft is the first-party publisher of Shadowrun, the company doesn’t have to pay itself the customary console royalty on the 360 version of the game. Why, then, do Xbox 360 gamers have to pay $60 for the same game that PC gamers only have to pay $50? Is this the pricing strategy that consumers should expect for future 360/PC cross-platform titles from Microsoft?
The $59.99 for Xbox 360 and $49.99 for Windows Vista price points are our standard pricing for each platform. This pricing structure is not uncommon in the multiplayer-only first-person shooter genre, as numerous titles have seen success at this price point and gaming model. I think it’s premature to speak to pricing for all future projects, but as of now this is our pricing structure for our marquee titles like Shadowrun. Additionally, MGS has the same development costs as other developers and publishers out there. One advantage other publishers have that we do not is that they can leverage their marketing and development costs over all platforms, while we are focused on Windows and Xbox 360 as a first party publisher.
So there you have it — Shadowrun will cost an extra $10 on the 360 because it’s how Microsoft rolls, dammit.
[Newsweek]
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