THQ’s Farrell Sees Game Prices Dropping

While THQ CEO Brian Farrell believes that the future could bring lower costs for console games, that seemingly bright prospect contains a bit of a catch for consumers.

Speaking at a recent Goldman Sachs conference, Farrell, as reported by CVG, sees console games eventually selling for between $29 to $39 at retail, but those would be basic or stripped down versions of games, with—of course—extra content available from paid downloadable content.

THQ will experiment with just this kind of concept on its upcoming MX vs ATV title. As Farrell noted, “In the past, we've seen that we bring the game out at $59.99 and it does reasonably well - around one million, or one million-and-a-half units.”

He continued, “When we lower the price to a mass market price the thing really jumps... So what we're doing this time is we're coming out initially with a smaller game at a lower price point - the $29 to $39 range.”

Then owners can spend money on DLC to their heart’s content. Farrell added that, “…a person that wants to spend $100 on the product can do so as well.”

The prospect of DLC is so attractive that Farrell even mentioned game makers possibly adapting a twist on the free-to-play model, where a base game itself would cost nothing for consumers.