"What other entertainment medium that's mass market is at $60 a pop?" said Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer at developer Epic's 360 title "Gears of War," due next year. Smith's explanation has been echoed by several publishers and developers working on the Xbox 360, but not everyone in the industry thinks that an increase in prices makes business sense. That adds up to Smith's "Full Auto" team being 50 strong, compared to less than 20 who worked on "Cel Damage," the first Pseudo Interactive title for the original Xbox. Extra coders were needed to make sure the game can run on new hardware. Smith said his team has had to include extra artists in order to render the combustible racing environments in "Full Auto" with the level of detail that will appear genuinely next-generation. "As a studio we can certainly speak to the amount of man hours and increase in staffing for next-generation content," said Cord Smith, the producer of February 2006 car-combat title "Full Auto." "As a gamer, it seems like it costs a lot to enter this new generation." Many developers and publishers say the reason for the price hike is simple: Next-gen games, because of graphics, coding, voice acting, cinema scenes and everything else gamers expect, cost more to make. Even within the gaming industry, the higher cost for games is getting a mixed reception. Those buying "King Kong," "Madden," "Call of Duty" or most other non-Microsoft-developed titles for the 360 will have noticed that - after nearly a decade of declining game prices - $60 gaming is back. The $400 tag hasn't been seen on a game console in America since the 1995 launch of the Sega Saturn.īut that wasn't the only old-time price point making a return. The Xbox 360 launched last week, garnering much fanfare for the $400 premium version of the system that gamers lined sidewalks to buy and that eBay bidders spent up to $1,500 to get their hands on.
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