Take-Two Interactive took the leap earlier this month and priced GTA 6 at $80, joining Mario Kart World in pushing past the $70 ceiling—a standard that was set in late 2020 alongside the release of next-gen consoles by Take-Two itself. Given how influential the series is, with developers actively avoiding the entire month of November to steer clear, it sets a worrying precedent. However, while some publishers are bound to follow suit, DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole claims that most games won't be able to justify it.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, he explained that "the industry has already been moving to this price point, led by Nintendo," but assured "there are only a handful of premium games that command this price point." Indeed, Xbox famously walked back its $80 plans with The Outer Worlds 2 and other premium first-party titles after coming under intense scrutiny, while Nintendo isn't strictly pushing the industry standard higher. The console giant has begun to price its games proportionately, with Star Fox launching at $50, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book at $60, and Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave at $70—at least, digitally.
As our sister site Polygon speculated, with the global memory...
