A Rigid Pricing Strcture

Since Pac-Man CE came out a week ago, there has been a bit of back lash based on the price. At 800 Microsoft Points, it's a little steep, in my opinion, but Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, doesn't believe so.

Namco came to us with what they thought the content price should be and I do not disagree with it costing 800 points. There's actually a lot of work from a lot of people to bring it all together.

Totally understandable. However, while the demo was a lot of fun, I just couldn't bring myself to fork over the points to purchase the full version. In fact, the only 800 point games I've purchased were Street Fighter II and Worms. Many games, such as Cloning Clyde, Eets, Castlevania, Catan and, possibly, Prince of Persia, have suffered a similar fate. I enjoy the demo but it's tough to justify the $10 price tag. On the other hand, the 400 point price point seem to be easier swallow as I have purchased the full version of several of those games.

Are there many people who are following the same logic? Maybe, but Microsoft has been stubborn to change their stance on pricing. This implies that the plan is working for them but maybe there needs to be a third tier. What if there was a 600 point price point in addition to the 400 and 800 for Live Arcade titles. This translates into $7.50 in real money. That doesn't seem that unreasonable for games that don't fit nicely within the current pricing model. It seems to work for Nintendo who has three tiers on the Virtual Console. Additionally, as some comments pointed out, where are the price cuts on the older titles? Where are the Platinum Hits? Microsoft has been mum but to the average consumer, it would make sense. It works for disc based games. Speculation would say that it might work even better for digitally distributed games. All we can do, in the mean time, is make our voices heard with our wallets. They'll get the message when we stop buying things on the Marketplace willy-nilly.