Microsoft is planning to sell some of its major upcoming first-party games for $69.99 at launch, according to a spokesperson who talked to IGN. The list will include Forza Motorsport, Redfall from Arkane Austin, and Starfield by Bethesda Game Studios. The company said in a statement, “this price reflects the content, scale, and technical complexity of these titles. As with all games developed by our teams at Xbox, they will also be available with Game Pass the same day they launch.”
Microsoft isn’t the first company to push beyond $60 for its major games — Take-Two Interactive priced NBA 2K21 at $70 in 2021, while Skull and Bones will be Ubisoft’s first $70 release when it arrives next year. The price increase is directly targeted at games built for PC and the current generation of consoles (Xbox Series X/S and PS5). The Nintendo Switch seems to be excluded, at least for now.
The price increase makes sense for larger games, given the scale and increased technical development required to produce them across multiple consoles. For example, even if a developer is just targeting current and last-gen Xbox consoles, they need to test across four different hardware configurations. Still, as $70 games become more common, Steam sales and other similar events could become more important than ever.
