Playing video games is getting more expensive these days, with companies like Nintendo and Microsoft announcing plans to charge $80 for games, and consumers are ready and willing to embrace the higher price points. That’s according to analyst Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics.
He told IGN that with Nintendo and Xbox announcing price hikes on games, “the floodgates are now open.” He expects every publisher in video games that can raise prices to do so.
“The market will bear it. Plenty of gamers are willing to pay price points above $70, as shown by the high numbers of those willing to pay $100 for a few days’ early access,” Elliott said.
He added that, even in challenging economic times, people will spend money on what they want the most, including video games. “The rising prices won’t necessarily reduce spending. The market will bear it. Early adopters will always be early adopters,” he said.
Before this, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said entertainment is a “fundamental human need,” and as such, he’s not worried about the global economic climate negatively impacting video games.
Newzoo’s Manu Rosier, meanwhile, said rising game prices may lead to shifts in how money is spent, with consumers becoming potentially “more selective” with what they buy. A consumer may respond to rising individual game prices by “spending less on individual full-priced titles and more on subscriptions, discounted bundles, or long-tail live-service games,” he said.
“The total spend may remain steady or even grow modestly, but the distribution across formats and platforms will likely continue to evolve. Xbox’s pricing changes, and similar moves by others, could accelerate this transition toward services and ecosystems over standalone product purchases,” Rosier said.
Game prices are not going up universally, as 2K Games just announced that Mafia: The Old Country will go for $50 when it launches in August. But history shows that there have always been lower-priced games in the market at the same time as higher-priced ones. Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners said, “$50 games in 2025 is just the new $40 games from the PS4 gen and $30 games from the PS2 gen. They’ve always existed and usually been the price point for titles that aren’t quite AAA in nature.”
Mat Piscatella of Circana added that he believes consumers may shift towards free-to-play games and other “more easily accessible forms of games.”
“Games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, etc. will likely see even more players and hours spent in their ecosystems. Players will also rely on and continue to play devices they already own a bit more rather than buy new hardware,” he said. “And, as prices rise in everyday spending categories like food, gas, shelter, automotive, etc, there will be fewer and fewer dollars available for categories like gaming in the U.S.”
Nintendo’s first $80 game is Mario Kart World, which is a launch title for the Switch 2–so far, it’s the only game that Nintendo has confirmed will carry that price point. As for Microsoft, the company will start charging $80 for some games later this year, but the company has not said which ones.
Beyond game prices going up, Microsoft is raising Xbox prices, while Sony might do the same, in part due to the impact of tariffs. The Switch 2’s $450 price point, meanwhile, is $50 more expensive than the original Switch was in 2017 with inflation factored in. The higher price point may negatively impact sales, Nintendo has said.
