Chris Kohler
Culture

Shane Kim On Shadowrun Price: "Because, That's Why"

N’Gai Croal asked Microsoft’s Shane Kim why the Xbox 360 version of Shadowrun, which ships TK, will cost $60 while the completely identical PC version costs $50. Kim’s response: "because we can." 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 […]

Kim_webN'Gai Croal asked Microsoft's Shane Kim why the Xbox 360 version of Shadowrun, which ships TK, will cost $60 while the completely identical PC version costs $50. Kim's response: "because we can."

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 basically, it breaks down to:

  1. It's $60 because that's what we can get away with;
  2. If we were a third-party publisher maybe it would be cheaper.

I'm sure Kim has some deeper thoughts on this second point, and I don't want to slam him over this one sentence, but I am pretty sure being the platform holder offers some significant advantages that are vastly outweighed by the fact that you're not doing multiplatform development. Certainly Nintendo has figured out how to leverage this, often with such efficiency that it causes even their closest third party partners to complain about it.

Shadowrun Pricing Rundown [Level Up]