Price difference in games on PSN?

Mr2Good3 · ‎01-04-2009

Why is sleeping dogs 16 bucks on steam but 50 bucks on PSN? I'm a die hard Sony fan but wide price differences for the same gm on different networks is insane. I wasn't looking at getting the steam box before but I may hv to aftet seeing that huge price difference.

Get your Portable ID!

FidelityBk · ‎12-09-2012

You can't compare Steam to the Playstation Store or Xbox Live Marketplace. Steam has Flash Sales, Publisher Bundles, Daily Deals, while console platforms don't really have those features. I also don't know how Steam works, publishers and developers might have control over their content on Steam, where they don't have much on the console storefronts. However comparing a retail copy of the game to the Playstation Store price should get you upset. Especially for games that are years old in which you can only buy used copies of and the used copies cost a third of what the Playstation Store is charging. Not only that but you're paying for a digital license over a physical disc, so it should always cost less.

JERM7 · ‎08-04-2009

Yeah, I'd guess it's because the publishers have more control over Steam prices, allowing them to put up sales more often. Also the game is $49.99 on Steam, so it must have been a sale (they just had a holiday sale for several weeks). I don't buy PSN games very often anymore since they could be free from PS+ or much cheaper on Steam.

Backloggery: http://backloggery.com/jerm7

J4TFOI · ‎12-13-2012

PSN REALLY needs Steam-like sales.
When Steam really started to get happenin' with sales I set myself a rule of no more than $10 on a single game or $20 on bundle type stuff. Never broke that rule. Most I spent was $15 on the 3 seasons of Sam & Max.
2 years ago I had bought a 4 pack of A+ titles for $7. Assassin's Creed, Call of Juarez (I can't remember the other 2). THAT'S LESS THAN $2 FOR EACH GAME! Can you even find digital or hard copies at of these same games at equivalent price for PS3 these days?
A lot of these PSN prices compared to equivalent of what Steam offers make it difficult to justify a purchase.

J4TFOI · ‎12-13-2012

FidelityBk wrote:
You can't compare Steam to the Playstation Store or Xbox Live Marketplace.

There's no reason you can't compare. They are nearly identical when it comes to the service of delivering digital content, the only difference is platform.

That would be like saying we can't compare & contrast Steam to Origin, or GOG, or Battle.net. Or whatever other digital content providers.

FidelityBk · ‎12-09-2012

J4TFOI wrote:
FidelityBk wrote:
You can't compare Steam to the Playstation Store or Xbox Live Marketplace.
There's no reason you can't compare. They are nearly identical in the service of delivering digital content, the only difference is platform.
That would be like saying we can't compare & contrast Steam to Origin, or GOG, or Battle.net. Or whatever other digital content providers.

If you read my post I went into why you couldn't compare them. You obviously don't know how the different digital content providers work. They are nowhere near identical, not even close. From licensing differences, to completely different terms from Sony, Valve, EA, and Blizzard, to the way content is distributed and managed in that particular online store, and the different fees or percentages charged by each content provider per sale, and whether it's based on content pricing or based on number of licenses sold. There are too many variables to ever compare them.

I'll give you a better analogy, it's like comparing the ingredients of an Oreo to a slice of Pizza, that's how different they are. Whether or not they are both foods, you can't compare them.

J4TFOI · ‎12-13-2012

FidelityBk wrote:
If you read my post I went into why you couldn't compare them. You obviously don't know how the different digital content providers work. They are nowhere near identical, not even close. From licensing differences, to completely different terms from Sony, Valve, EA, and Blizzard, to the way content is distributed and managed in that particular online store, and the different fees or percentages charged by each content provider per sale, and whether it's based on content pricing or based on number of licenses sold. There are too many variables to ever compare them.
I'll give you a better analogy, it's like comparing the ingredients of an Oreo to a slice of Pizza, that's how different they are. Whether or not they are both foods, you can't compare them.

If negotiations can be worked out to bring the type of offers & sales that appear on Steam, then it's a very realistic possibility that PSN could do the same.

FidelityBk · ‎12-09-2012

Did you not see the Christmas sales? There will not be any negotiations going on to get sales like steam, sorry.

TheCastah · ‎01-09-2013

It's perfectly fair to compare the two, and what it comes down to is the PSN compensates for it's free service by making others pay for it through tactics like this.