It doesn’t feel too long ago that the price of a AAA video game jumped to $70, but that isn’t stopping publishers from hoping GTA 6 will lead to another price increase, according to a new report from a video game analyst. We should be able to begin collecting the Grand Theft Auto VI achievements sometime later this year when the open-world Xbox game launches on Xbox Series X|S — hopefully with a standard $70 price point for the base game.Take-Two could be the frontrunner for another industry-wide AAA price increaseA new report suggests publishers are hoping GTA 6 will push another price increase for gamesSome publishers reportedly hope GTA 6 will be priced between $80 and $100GTA 6 launches on Xbox Series X|S sometime in 2025″In 2025, GTA VI’s impact on industry playtime and spending will be mixed as it launches console-online and (severely) cannibalizes hours/spend on other titles,” Epyllion’s Mathew Ball reports. “But some game makers hope GTA VI will be priced at $80-$100, breaking the $70 barrier and helping $50 titles to move up to $60, $60 to do $70, etc.”While it’s not uncommon to see special editions of games roll out with a $100 price point, bundling a selection of additional content with the base game, most AAA games launch with a standard version priced around $70. Although $70 has been the standard for AAA games since the Xbox Series X|S and PS5 launched in 2020, it’s still a bitter pill to swallow for many players.Although that $70 might land you something great like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Elden Ring, there is always a chance you’ll get an experience similar to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League or Skull and Bones instead. While development costs are on the rise as developers become ever more ambitious with their games — we recently saw the eye-watering development costs for some recent Call of Duty games — the cost of living for players is also skyrocketing, making it hard to justify such large spends on games that aren’t exceptional experiences.There is a good chance that GTA 6 will be worth every penny we spend on it; Rockstar has earned that trust, but not every publisher has earned that goodwill from players. It comes as no surprise, then, that many players opt to spend a lot of their time on the upcoming Game Pass games or wait for a sale. Due to the current state of video game sales, we’ve already started to see Microsoft port some of its Xbox exclusives to rival platforms, and some big Xbox franchises are reportedly heading to PlayStation this year as well. PlayStation has also been porting its games to other platforms, although PC has been the target thus far, both in an attempt to find additional consumers to pay for the increasing development costs of their games.What do you think? Would you be willing to spend $80 to $100 for the best Xbox games? Drop a comment below and let us know.
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