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Microsoft raises Halo game prices worldwide (Some countries up to 400%)

Yeah, situation is totally the same. As we all know Microsoft is a small indie just like the makers of NMS.

If you don’t think about this poor vulnerable company with $89 billion profits in 2022, who will? Because clearly MS couldn’t afford to properly launch MCC.
What did I just read. Yep, 343 cashed in all that $89B, respect on your math there mate.

You've convinced me, let us start a petition for MS to go free for life for all products. /S
 

Mownoc

Member
Almost every country has increased, below are the worst affected. Many companies charge more than Valve recommends for that region and make changes to certain countries based on economic reasons. But seeing a sweeping change across the board like this isn't too common and honestly some of these are disgraceful. Argentina's price is ridiculous now. It's one of the regions that usually has the cheapest pricing for games but now for MCC it costs substantially more than the USA/UK/EU with current currency conversions. MCC:

qHmU4S4.png


Why they would do this for titles that are many years old and aren't selling any more is beyond me.
 
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Robins

Member
My guess is they are ramping up for Christmas sales because they are probably not selling a lot right now anyway.

"25% off!" Big Sale! etc.

It's 100% this. They all do it, inflate the price before you discount it back to the normal price 30 days later disguised as a big sale. Amazon love to do this.
 

StueyDuck

Member
That's funny, clearly you have no idea how much I took that broken piece of shit of launch MCC to task.

And for the record, MCC is definitely now in the league of NMS redemption arc.

Am I happy with the price increase? No.

Am I happy MCC will continue to get support? Yes.
As someone whose busy playing through the entire franchise co-op with a friend on PC, I strongly disagree.

While it is better than it was at launch the MCC still is a horrid janky mess on PC at least, constantly crashing.

Halo 2 was almost unplayable, we almost gave up on the campaign halfway through.

At least no man's sky works and did work when the game was shit.
 

cireza

Member
People thought Microsoft would foot the $70 billion bill lol. No, it's going to be Xbox gamers that will be paying that cost.
For me to pay for something they actually need to have me want to buy it in the first place.

People here are faking outrage because MS is tied to the news, but regional price increases have been a common thing on all stores for years.

And the solution is still the same : nobody is forcing the consumer to buy. If it is perceived as too expensive, don't buy and be done with it. Imagine being outraged in your supermarket because your breakfast is more expensive than before.
 
I totally see Digital Fondry telling people all over the interner it's a good thing and that haters are just haters hating who are clueless about running a soooooo great and big company and that MS does what they want for their own good so for your own good, that MS is so good we don't deserve them! And they'll end with : "God please, bless MS"

Yea man!

woaaahhh-dickhead-alert.jpg
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Salty for the criticism much? Halo: MCC shipping busted open and having to receive years worth of fixes to deliver on what was promised (itself a collection of old games) and it justifies a price increase? Nah, much rather praise NMS’s redemption arc than simping for MGS like this sorry.

You realize that doesn’t describe the Steam version, right?
 

Fabieter

Member
Sure as hell they are dropping all this after the transaction is complete. We are in for the best in gaming in the future.
 
As someone whose busy playing through the entire franchise co-op with a friend on PC, I strongly disagree.

While it is better than it was at launch the MCC still is a horrid janky mess on PC at least, constantly crashing.

Halo 2 was almost unplayable, we almost gave up on the campaign halfway through.

At least no man's sky works and did work when the game was shit.
That sucks, I'll be the first in line to bitch 343 out with you for such poor support on PC. I believe Halo 2 in MCC is based off the vista version of Halo 2 and not console version e.g. total shite.

From memory there is still some hardware features to do with Halo CE fog from the OG xbox that is apparently in the too hard or too costly basket too.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
That sucks, I'll be the first inline to bitch 343 out with you for such poor support on PC. I believe Halo 2 in MCC is based off the vista version of Halo 2 and not console version e.g. total shite.

From memory there is still some hardware features to do with Halo CE fog from the OG xbox that is apparently in the too hard or too costly basket too.

Nah. I believe that’s based on the Halo 2 Anniversary update, at higher resolution and with HDR. The Vista thing was for the classic port.
 
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Mownoc

Member
Nah. I believe that’s based on the Halo 2 Anniversary update, at higher resolution and with HDR. The Vista thing was for the classic port.
"Halo 2 was never much of a looker. But it certainly wasn't done many favours with the 2007 Vista port, whose many visual bugs carried over into the Master Chief Collection. But with this week's Season 8 update, Halo 2 is finally a somewhat nicer looking game—though I'd still rather play the Anniversary remaster."


MCC on PC had a lot of visual issues from the original Vista version which they eventually mostly addressed, but not until 2 years after it launched on PC.
 
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Three

Member
Plus with them soon to be destroying the second hand market what choice do these countries have other than to pay whatever they ask or subscribe?
 

Ozriel

M$FT
"Halo 2 was never much of a looker. But it certainly wasn't done many favours with the 2007 Vista port, whose many visual bugs carried over into the Master Chief Collection. But with this week's Season 8 update, Halo 2 is finally a somewhat nicer looking game—though I'd still rather play the Anniversary remaster."


MCC on PC had a lot of visual issues from the original Vista version which they eventually mostly addressed, but not until 2 years after it launched on PC.


Nah, you’re wrong. The MCC has Halo 2 Anniversary, but it also lets you switch between H2A and the classic Halo 2 on the fly. Your initial paragraph talks about the issues with the Halo 2 Classic which was a port of the Vista release

You can read this PC gamer review for more info

 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
For me to pay for something they actually need to have me want to buy it in the first place.

People here are faking outrage because MS is tied to the news, but regional price increases have been a common thing on all stores for years.
What outrage? I only see very measured takes and comments in response to this price increase.
And the solution is still the same : nobody is forcing the consumer to buy. If it is perceived as too expensive, don't buy and be done with it.
And that has already been happening. Value is perceived anyway. A lot of Xbox games are charging way more than they are worth, which is reflected in their poor sales. Almost no XGS game ever charts nowadays.
 
I own MCC and love it but that doesn't change the fact that MS sold a broken game for years. Fixing it doesn't deserve praise.
MCC still has issues, no doubt.

It has gone well beyond the old games, content, updates, fixes, features, maps etc. They had/have a small but dedicated and talented team on it.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
A lot of Xbox games are charging way more than they are worth, which is reflected in their poor sales. Almost no XGS game ever charts nowadays.

GamePass is a thing, you know?

On storefronts like Steam that aren’t as significantly impacted by GP, XGS games have found quite good success.
Exceptions like Redfall and Forza Motorsport happen.

That aside, I have no idea why they’re increasing Pc prices like this in regional markets without any communication
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
MCC still has issues, no doubt.

It has gone well beyond the old games, content, updates, fixes, features, maps etc. They had/have a small but dedicated and talented team on it.

Hard to make a massive product without still having some lingering bugs etc.

But it’s got a 92% ‘Very Positive’ rating on Steam for a reason. The console release was a clusterfuck. Definitely not the case for the Steam release
 

Three

Member
GamePass is a thing, you know?

On storefronts like Steam that aren’t as significantly impacted by GP, XGS games have found quite good success.
Exceptions like Redfall and Forza Motorsport happen.

That aside, I have no idea why they’re increasing Pc prices like this in regional markets without any communication
That's his point. He is saying MS are charging way more than some of these games are currently worth for 'perceived value' and they don't care that they aren't selling much or charting.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
Looks like they're just trying to match the pricing with the rest of the world. It's a growth strategy for them by taking full advantage of the regions of the world where they weren't as big before, i.e. a mask off moment for Microsoft.

Besides, what kind of bullshit logic made it so that you could buy those games in India for a fraction of the price that's available for the rest of the world? You wanna be a first world country then it's time to pay first world prices, lol.
 

Mownoc

Member
Which places? I looked up a few conversations and most currency is like .00025 on a dollar
You can see my table a few posts above that lists a lot of the countries that have had large increases in price. Argentina for example increased by the equivalent of $34.
 
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Three

Member
This is illegal isn't it?
In some places yeah. Before in the UK there was some kind of rule that the price must be the genuine price so to stop them advertising a fake price just before the sale that presale price should be the regular price for some period (28 day period minimum) but instead what the companies started doing is raising their prices 28 days before the sale just to get around it.
I think in the UK the CMA had some new guidance on it but I'm not sure how exactly they control fake presale prices now.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
In some places yeah. Before in the UK there was some kind of rule that the price must be the genuine price so to stop them advertising a fake price just before the sale that presale price should be the regular price for some period (28 day period minimum) but instead what the companies started doing is raising their prices 28 days before the sale just to get around it.
I think in the UK the CMA had some new guidance on it but I'm not sure how exactly they control fake presale prices now.

What a lot of supermarkets used to do (and may still do) was have a special sale where they'd sell things that they wouldn't normally sell - towels or pans or whatever. What would happen is that they'd put those items up for sale in a small number of stores for a short amount of time, and then would reduce the price for the "sale" at which point all stores in their chain would be stocked with those items, so stores that had never sold towels or pans would have products that appeared on the shelf for the first time at half price.
 

Three

Member
What a lot of supermarkets used to do (and may still do) was have a special sale where they'd sell things that they wouldn't normally sell - towels or pans or whatever. What would happen is that they'd put those items up for sale in a small number of stores for a short amount of time, and then would reduce the price for the "sale" at which point all stores in their chain would be stocked with those items, so stores that had never sold towels or pans would have products that appeared on the shelf for the first time at half price.
Are you talking about places like Lidl? I think they still do that but I'm not sure I see the relevance. Those were loss leader products to try and lure people to a store to buy other things they make profit on. There are laws on that too regarding inventory and baiting.

Anyway I don't think these increases are for a sale or anything. They are likely to be longterm regional pricing adjustments.
 
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Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Are you talking about places like Lidl? I think they still do that but I'm not sure I see the relevance. Those were loss leader products to try and lure people to a store to by other things. There are laws on that too regarding inventory and baiting.

Anyway I don't think these increases are for a sale or anything. They are likely to be longterm regional pricing adjustments.
No all of them, when I was at college, I had a part time job at Sainsbury's and that's exactly how it played out. The point is that there's a long history of playing the system in the uk when it comes to pricing, so it's entirely possible that price changes aren't necessarily based on making sales today.

As mentioned elsewhere, Amazon do it constantly, I bought a case for my Switch in September. It went on sale for Prime Day - I couldn't stop myself and had a look. X% off! - with the "discount" same price I paid without being a special sale price.
 

Unknown?

Member
Probably not.

Just want to point out, however, that "regional inflation" doesn't really explain most of this. At least not for many of the countries affected. For instance, Saudi Arabia's inflation is around 2-3% right now. That doesn't justify seeing a 200% bump in the price of a game. Nor does India's 2023 inflation explain why a publisher wants its citizens to start paying 400% more for games. There's other examples, but you can see it doesn't really match with the assumptions behind your quote.



It's also not due to Steam's recommendations per se. In fact, that's part of the problem: publishers are leaning more and more towards direct currency conversion, not what Valve suggests. Which might look good on a company spreadsheet, I suppose, but it will lead to more people either waiting for a significant discount or simply deciding to skip certain game releases.
Maybe they don't base it off of fake government statistics? Last year the US hit 9% but if you calculated it with the formula they did in the 1980s it was 20% and that's still using manipulated stats just not as manipulated as it is now.
 
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