Bethesda talks Shivering Isles download and price

Bethesda Vice President of PR Pete Hines sat down with Gamasutra to talk about Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion. In the Q&A, Hines stated that the the content will only be available through Xbox Live Marketplace. According to Hines, stand-alone expansions can not work with another existing product on the Xbox 360, leaving Marketplace downloads as the only viable option. Despite Bethesda wanting to have a version for the retail market, they were unable to do so because of this. Should implementing expansions via disc become possible after some extensive work on Microsoft's part, Bethesda plans to explore that option for Shivering Isles.

As for price point, Bethesda doesn't have anything concrete yet. They are still in talks with Microsoft to find the proper balance between value and profitability. After Shivering Isles releases, Hines said that they are planning one or two more pieces of content for Oblivion, albeit not the size of the forthcoming expansion. So are you going to download Shivering Isles? If so, how much are you willing to pay?

[Via Digg]

Reader Comments (25)

You could buy the Morrowind GOTY version with all the expansions attached. Why not sell the full version of Oblivion with the expansion added from the disc as if it were online?

Why couldnt they just have you buy the disc and have it save to your hard drive just like the marketplace download would be, oh wait. Forgot about people who dont have Harddrives.

2Why couldnt they just have you buy the disc and have it save to your hard drive just like the marketplace download would be, oh wait. Forgot about people who dont have Harddrives"

Well that would mean i could buy one copy and give it to everyone i know :P
SOrry but it looks like downloadin it is the only way ....plus it will use information from the game any ways ...can,t see the download bein more than 1.5 gigs

If it's a full blown expansion pack I'd gladly pay 800 points for it, if not more.

I think 1200 points would be fair. I'd buy it for 1600 though.

1200MS points if they can work in 200 Gamerscore points/12 Achievements (similar to an arcade game)

"Well that would mean i could buy one copy and give it to everyone i know :P
SOrry but it looks like downloadin it is the only way ....plus it will use information from the game any ways ...can,t see the download bein more than 1.5 gigs"

couldnt you still copy it from HD to HD using that 3rd party HD transferere, or just use memory cards if they come big enough. Also i am definitly buying this even if its 1,000,000MSP... i love me some oblivion

I would not be suprised to see the price hovering in the 25 to 30 dollar range. 20 hours of main questline is quite a lot, and well over 10 more hours of side quests, that's is the size of some games you can buy retail for 60 dollars.
Prepare to press X for more points.

1200 would be nice.

"Well that would mean i could buy one copy and give it to everyone i know :P"

Exactly. It would be the Halo 2 map pack redux.

...and I was kinda hoping for that too. :p

... I kinda regret trading in my copy now. Oh how I miss those incredibly individual dungeons and glitched quests!

:'(

All the game needs now is some variety in armor and weapons, for the love of christ there are maybe 4 or 5 diffrent armor sets. Why did they waste so much time making that ugly ass clothes? for the rest of the ugly asses in tamriel? sons a bitchs!

1200 and it better come with every single piece of Oblivion content ever released, including horse armor.

I would pay 1200, more if I had to though I wouldn't be happy about it.

800 pts? 1200 pts? You're nuts if you think its going that cheap. I agree with an early post. This suckers going to be in the $25-$30 range because you're getting an expansion thats bigger then most other games.

Didn't they say there would be NO achievement points for the expansion since Oblivion already used up the 1000 pts? If thats true, its going to be hard for me to buy this expansion. Why wouldn't they give us Gamerpoints for a game that gives you as much as its going to deliver??

800 would be nice. I wouldn't spend any more than 1200. Otherwise I'd just wait and buy any eventual Oblivion "GOTY" edition, which would have all the content at a price of $20-30.

I will wait for it to become free, but if they add extra achievements to it then I could see paying maybe 500 to 800.

I'll wait and see what all is in there but anymore then $20 would have to be a huge amount of content before I go for it.

i'm with #15 800ms points, 1200 is pushing it. anything over 1200, and MS, Bethesda...you can forget about getting my money. i've got other bills to pay besides feeding a gaming habit!

I will buy it no matter wat it will cost. You wont get more game for the money than with Morrowind and Oblivion. Considering how much more gamevalue I got from those games im ready to pay up to get even more of the tes magic.

I'd probably go for $20 on it but not more. The problem is Oblivion was fun while it lasted but I'm done with it now. I'd need a reason to put it back in the 360 again. This expansion might get me to do so, but only if the price is right.

@ 20: I agree with the bit about Achievements. An expansion is an add-on to a game that the player is purchasing. It's not like buying skins/cars/horse armour/levels or outright direct purchase of achievement points. An expansion SHOULD be able to garner achievements. There is NO logic to the current stance of MS on this issue.

The only Oblivion download I have not gotten is the ridiculous "Horse Armor". The rest have all added to my Oblivion experience. I have put in around 300hrs an have finished all main quests, guild quests, and got 1000 in Achievements. When the Knights Of The Nine was released it gave me a good reason to put Oblivion back in the 360. Shivering Isles will do the same. I have a feeling that the price will be higher than what we are used to seeing, but if Shivering Isles has as much content as we have been hearing it will be worth the price of admission.

I agree that it would be a nice addition if I could get more Achievement points, but MS has made 1000 the limit. I have gotten my 1000 but I have not "finished" the game. And I continue to play because Achievement points is not what drives me to play.

There is no way it is going to be under 1200 points, they released knights of the nine (which was very short) for 800 points. I am thinking they will release it in the 1600-2000 point range, I would most likely buy it for 1600 and under, just because I am still playing Oblivion, this far after release.

A full fledged expansion for PC generally costs $20 or more, so I'd be willing to pay 1600 MS points.

Bethesda talks Shivering Isles download and price

Reader Comments (25)

Posted: Jan 25th 2007 7:42PM JonahFalcon said

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