Xbox 360 'Games on Demand' priced between $20-$30

by Alexander Sliwinski on Aug 5th 2009 9:58PM

Microsoft informed us this afternoon that its initial offerings of Games on Demand, the company's selection of downloadable Xbox 360 titles, will be priced between 1600-2400

-- that's $20-30 in American credit card currency. We got a little curious after one price was revealed in a video earlier today, but we wanted to make sure about the rest.

We're currently working on getting the full list of prices for each game, but all will be revealed next week when the latest dashboard update goes live, on August 11.

Tags: games-on-demand, Microsoft, nxe, xbl, xblm, Xbox-360, xbox-dashboard

Reader Comments (61)

Well...from the looks of the list of games, most of those games cost $20 or LESS for new in box....I have a feeling this will go over about as well as Xbox Originals did :(

Nearly all of these games can be picked up for $10 or less on Goozex. That's shipping included, no tax, with box, manual, and the ability to trade/resell.

Someone remind me again why Microsoft is so scared of offending Gamestop? Suppose Microsoft did start offering new-release games, or offering these games at reasonable prices. What exactly is Gamestop going to do?

Are they going to stop carrying all Microsoft products? That would hurt Microsoft, but it would bankrupt Gamestop. It just isn't going to happen.

Maybe they just wanna tap the Market any & all ways they possibly can.. If anyone buys these it must be good profit for Microsoft. Can't imagine it cost them too much to put this together..

Copa, I agree wholeheartedly. I've been offended by GameStops business tactics for a while now, and I think a lot of the gaming community feels the same way. I wish Microsoft would serve them a body blow that would make them rethink things.

Xizer: I'd take that wager. Wii users buy the Wii, and some controllers, then they're done. Xbox 360 users buy the console, and TONS of games, then trade them in for newer games which is where all of Gamestop's profit lies. Selling a used game is probably the same profit $'s as selling an actual Wii, with a MUCH higher margin.

so no $60 games :(

Not true. Microsoft has an option that allows you to buy Prey, and leave a $40 tip.

Ha I bought Prey at gamestop for $4 on sale last year..

got prey with that sale too and havent even played it yet.... ive gathered quite a collection of well priced games now myself....

this just makes no sense to me.

but if you are (not you) that person that cant get out of bed but can pick up a controller, this is just for you....

at least we can get a game like bioshock and mass effect 360 for under $ 20 at every store more or less, but sony still stiffs us on old games like uncharted where you really have to search for a $ 30 price, while the MSRP remains $ 60...

i never understood how these companies including mp3 sellers seem to charge the same amount for the media as purchasing the real 'hard' media format and especially when it costs so much less to manufacture a mp3 or downloadable file versus a manufactured product...

we should be getting deals for stripped goods we never own.

I was expecting 1500 points and the Xbox originals to drop price but i guess it was just a dream.

Back the eff up - I was pretty sure at E3 they said the games would be 20 bucks even, or even less.

What I expected.

Meaning they will attempt to trick suckers into paying twice to three times the going rate for the same game in physical form.

Prey is $7 at GameStop. WTF, Microsoft? WTF.

I never see any games ever for discounted price. In my country they stay the same for years :(

In Russia, Games play you!

I'm guessing only games that are 2 years old or more will be on here.

As a general rule, I'd say so. There could be exceptions, however.

well after pricing most arcade games at 800-1200 they can't really price a downloadable full retail game at that..
i mean i think they're having these prices based on what they already have for the rest downloadable games on the marketplace.

and a lot of people who play probably associate retail with more money so naturally they may think that 1600 is fair when in reality you could get it much less, thats just what i think anyway..

I hope that if they put new games, they would be discounted to at least 50$ from 60$, since we are not getting a box, manual, or disk. They don't even have to share the money with a retailer. I would just stick to buying game Disk if they were priced evenly with their physical counter-part.

Retailers get something like 20%. This is not an extremely small fraction.

@LS2LS7: Perhaps when the price drops into the half-off range or under $20, but new releases are very different. Retailers *typically* see $5 at most in markup. I'm basing this on my time at EB in the early part of the decade. I'll concede that things may have changed, but I sincerely doubt it. There is a reason they always ask for trades & have awesome deals on used games - it's all profit.

Does anyone know an article/rant about videos on demand? The article maker drew a pictuure of a guy head explodes while saying "No! I want fucking entertainment in my ears and my eys now! AAAAHHHHHH!" and then his head explodes, and later his legs explode becuse it was considered cool? Where can I ind it so that I can use the word "on demand" as a point of reference?

I was lookin forward to this, but I'm not spending $20 on crackdown when it's $10 at gamestop. I'll pay a couple more dollars for the convenience, but not $10-$20 more.

Final dashboard update?

I think it is 'final' as in finished - not the last one, although I could be wrong...

If you search for the game on xbox.com, it will tell you how much it costs :)

Hmm...I was thinking about getting Mass Effect again but after seeing those prices I'm taking a step back. Microsoft needs to realize that since they're competing in territory that is owned by Gamestop they can't just set their own rules and expect to win the game. And since there's nothing physical being given to me I'm a little wary, especially if a retail copy is cheaper.

lol i bought COD2 a few months ago for like 7 bucks. As expected ill pass. Thanks for trying MS.

20 dollers seems kinda fair since about the price of a greatest hit title plus, the games are new and never been used before, off topic but how do I change the email connected to my joystiq account can anyone help?

LOL wowzers...

...and this service will fail just like XBOX Originals did.

What did those idiots think, that XBOX Originals failed NOT because of price, but because it was XBOX 1 games? Ha.

Hardly anyone, except the extremely naive, or extremely curious is going to use this, because, just like the originals, why pay $20-30 when you can get the game new in a box for $20 or less... or in most cases, used for $10 or less. Hell, look at Mass Effect. The Platinum Hits version is $20, and comes with a second disc with stuff. The GoD version is $20, and is just the game, and nothing else. WHY would any sane individual do that?

Does Microsoft still update the backwards compatibility list anymore? Or did they stop that to start charging people for Xbox Originals?

They completely abandoned updating the BC list a year or two ago.

wow cody, as if you couldn't get anymore unbearable. now you're advertising in your name! simple blogs are fine, but that's ridiculous!

Laziness.

I have to get my fat ass off the couch, get in my car, drive ten miles, find parking, leaf through the mess of used gamestop games to find the right one, and then get home and find out the game is scratched. After the second trip to gamestop and getting one that works, I still have to get up off the couch every time I want to play the damn game.

With games on demand, I don't even have to move, I just pay way too much money for the game, and it gets delivered fairly quickly while I play other games. When I want to return to the game after playing something else, I get to just press the xbox button and go to quick launch.

Also, there are plenty of parents that first of all have no idea that they can get the same games cheaper and secondly would rather just hand their kids a credit card than drive them to the mall.

So for a smart shopper no, games on demand isn't fantastic, but I have a feeling it'll be pretty successful for Microsoft.

It's called convenience my friend. That's where that extra $5 is going to.

Too high for games that old.

Atleast with PSN full games are cheap.

what was the price on GT5longDEMO on PSN today ???
$ 30 - $ 40 still right?

socom? $ 40 ?

i don't get where the same type of quality ps3 games are cheaper on PSN..
i don't get the fanboy drift?

sony and ms charge too much for downloadable media available on disc.

Well 1600-2400 points is £13.60 - £20.40 here in the UK.
I can pick up any of the games online new for around £10 - £15 each.

I will never purchase an xbox 360 game from this service. Sound like there's a lot of Gamestop fans around too, but I never plan on supporting them either.

When I buy a used video game, I can always find it MUCH cheaper online (even after shipping) than at Gamestop. Whenever I sell a used video game, I always get MUCH more by selling it online than I would from Gamestop. I've also had too few bad customer service experiences with Gamestop.

It's not about being a fan. It's the only choice for some.

And now it's the only brick and mortar choice. God bless capitalism.

or you could use goozex.. just sayin

They better be, the games are old.

you need to stop posting this spam crap. seriously can someone stop this idiot from posting this same spam across different articles.

PDZ is in the clearance bins at Gamestop for 8 dollars...yeah, this will fail. Just like Jade Empire being 15 when used copies are less than 10.

I'm disappointed in all the old games. I was expecting new releases on games on demand. I certainly wouldn't make all of my purchases on it, but it's perfect for some games. Really popular games like Halo Recon would be really nice to have instant access to so it doesn't take any shuffling through discs to play with a friend when they're on.

I understand why they don't have all the newest games up there. It's frustrating though seeing so many over priced early/launch titles. As others pointed out, a Best Buy "junk game bin" will see some of those games for $10-20 as it is. I like the idea of digital distribution a lot, but throw us a bone. Fable 2 is no longer new and now $40 in most stores new. Halo 3 isn't new either. Let's get some solid/newer games up there too. If they don't, people will come to know it as a dumping ground for crummy games and never buy from it. I mean, really? Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 for $20?

i totally agree with you man. a perfect example of how badly games like sonic the hedgehog are is to go look at half.com and see how much people are selling it for on there.
http://product.half.ebay.com/Sonic-the-Hedgehog_W0QQprZ53694393QQtgZinfo
those prices don't lie.......

I find it funny that most people actually thought Digital Downloading would be cheaper, basically in this case instead of Gamestop or Wal Mart getting the cut it's Microsoft.

I think $20 - $30 is perfectly reasonable... "oooh i can get it on goozex for $15 including shipping" ... yeah well i can get it for $20 bucks and not have to get off my ass to play it... ever

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Xbox 360 'Games on Demand' priced between $20-$30

Reader Comments (61)

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