Thursday, September 21, 2006
LwT: Gran Turismo is mighty pricey
I mentioned yesterday that I was worried about Sony's online plan for the PS3. It's expensive to run an integrated network so, I theorized, Sony is either going to offer a bastardized version of Xbox Live or copy the MS model to a T, complete with a yearly subscription fee. It seems as though Sony's plan is actually much worse. In a seemingly unending stream of bad PS3 news, Sony announced yesterday how they will gouge customers for the next Gran Turismo title. Of course, they have officially announced wallet raping for only one title, but if this is a success you know they will milk customers, along with their relatives/friends/casual acquaintances, bone dry.
Gran Turismo is Pokemon for car enthusiasts. People suffer through mediocre gameplay in both titles to catch all the different characters/cars. Every sequel has built upon this theme, keeping the simple gameplay in place with little tweaking while adding even more things to collect. Until now, one only needed a lot of patience to collect everything in these games. While the next versions of Pokemon (for the NDS and presumably the Wii as well) seem to continue this boring though successful trend, Sony has found a way to raise the price of their collect-a-thon by 10,000%. Instead of using fake money earned in the game to buy new cars, you have to use actual, human money. It's like buying a real car except you have nothing tangible to show for it! They have only announced this game/pricing model in Japan right now, but you know it's going to be used in the US and Europe (especially Europe. Sony hates Europeans) if people actually give Sony real money for fake cars.
In real life, a Corvette costs about $50,000. How much will gullible gamers be willing to spend on an imaginary version? Sony is charging a whopping 50 - 100 yen for each car you crave. That's about 1 dollar per car! The game ships with only two tracks as well. If you get bored of those get ready to spend 200 - 500 yen on more. That's about $5 for one track! Oh, and did I mention this isn't even a real Gran Turismo sequel? Remember that half hour demonstration at E3 last year where some mindless Sony Rep actually drove through two whole tracks in a game known as Gran Turismo HD? Everyone assumed it wasn't a real game. Everyone assumed that, since it was just an HD upgrade to GT4 (a PS2 title), Sony was just using it as a demonstration to show off their pretty 1080p graphics. It looks like gamers will have to wait until 2008 for Gran Turismo 5, and have the next two years to pump money into Gran Turismo HD.
Honestly, if Sony is really planning on making back the money they are using on their online network by physically inserting pain into the rectum of gamers, they may end up making more than Microsoft does with a traditional subscription service. Or it may backfire horribly. People are already spending $600 on a console, are they going to spend $100 on every game as well? Are they going to be content buying magic in Final Fantasy, swords in Devil May Cry, and an ending for Resistance? Remember, this lame business model has only been announced for GTHD and only in Japan so far. But this may be the start of some horrible trend.
$3 for Oblivion's Horse Armor doesn't seem quite so horrible anymore, does it?
One quick note - I realize it may sound hypocritical that I am ripping Sony for trying to gouge customers but have no problem with the micro transactions on the Xbox 360 that have been going on since last November. Well, I'm not being hypocritical and am hurt that anyone would think that. The extra maps and skins MS is tossing out there are a bonus upgrade for people who really dig a title. I own Perfect Dark Zero and have put many hours into the multiplayer mode even though I didn't download the extra maps. The extra content in these games are just for diehard fans that can't get enough.
Gran Turismo, though, is completely built upon collecting cars. That's the entire game! The gameplay isn't good and there isn't a vibrant online community. By charging for more cars, and only giving 30 right out of the box, Sony is clearly raping customers. This is akin to Electronic Arts only including 10 teams in Madden. Yes, you can play with only a third of the league, but any casual fan is going to want more teams. If EA charged $1 for every additional team, you know just about everyone would spend the extra $22. Madden would be incomplete without every team in the NFL and Gran Turismo is incomplete without hundreds of cars available.
Gran Turismo is Pokemon for car enthusiasts. People suffer through mediocre gameplay in both titles to catch all the different characters/cars. Every sequel has built upon this theme, keeping the simple gameplay in place with little tweaking while adding even more things to collect. Until now, one only needed a lot of patience to collect everything in these games. While the next versions of Pokemon (for the NDS and presumably the Wii as well) seem to continue this boring though successful trend, Sony has found a way to raise the price of their collect-a-thon by 10,000%. Instead of using fake money earned in the game to buy new cars, you have to use actual, human money. It's like buying a real car except you have nothing tangible to show for it! They have only announced this game/pricing model in Japan right now, but you know it's going to be used in the US and Europe (especially Europe. Sony hates Europeans) if people actually give Sony real money for fake cars.
In real life, a Corvette costs about $50,000. How much will gullible gamers be willing to spend on an imaginary version? Sony is charging a whopping 50 - 100 yen for each car you crave. That's about 1 dollar per car! The game ships with only two tracks as well. If you get bored of those get ready to spend 200 - 500 yen on more. That's about $5 for one track! Oh, and did I mention this isn't even a real Gran Turismo sequel? Remember that half hour demonstration at E3 last year where some mindless Sony Rep actually drove through two whole tracks in a game known as Gran Turismo HD? Everyone assumed it wasn't a real game. Everyone assumed that, since it was just an HD upgrade to GT4 (a PS2 title), Sony was just using it as a demonstration to show off their pretty 1080p graphics. It looks like gamers will have to wait until 2008 for Gran Turismo 5, and have the next two years to pump money into Gran Turismo HD.
Honestly, if Sony is really planning on making back the money they are using on their online network by physically inserting pain into the rectum of gamers, they may end up making more than Microsoft does with a traditional subscription service. Or it may backfire horribly. People are already spending $600 on a console, are they going to spend $100 on every game as well? Are they going to be content buying magic in Final Fantasy, swords in Devil May Cry, and an ending for Resistance? Remember, this lame business model has only been announced for GTHD and only in Japan so far. But this may be the start of some horrible trend.
$3 for Oblivion's Horse Armor doesn't seem quite so horrible anymore, does it?
One quick note - I realize it may sound hypocritical that I am ripping Sony for trying to gouge customers but have no problem with the micro transactions on the Xbox 360 that have been going on since last November. Well, I'm not being hypocritical and am hurt that anyone would think that. The extra maps and skins MS is tossing out there are a bonus upgrade for people who really dig a title. I own Perfect Dark Zero and have put many hours into the multiplayer mode even though I didn't download the extra maps. The extra content in these games are just for diehard fans that can't get enough.
Gran Turismo, though, is completely built upon collecting cars. That's the entire game! The gameplay isn't good and there isn't a vibrant online community. By charging for more cars, and only giving 30 right out of the box, Sony is clearly raping customers. This is akin to Electronic Arts only including 10 teams in Madden. Yes, you can play with only a third of the league, but any casual fan is going to want more teams. If EA charged $1 for every additional team, you know just about everyone would spend the extra $22. Madden would be incomplete without every team in the NFL and Gran Turismo is incomplete without hundreds of cars available.
// posted by Tom @ 11:32 AM 
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