Summer blockbusters aren't just good for propping up the sales of crappy new movie-based games ... it turns out they're also good for pumping up the prices of crappy old games based on the same characters. For proof, look no further than the always interesting Video Game Price Charts blog, which shows a distinct and recent uptick in the selling prices for older games based on the Speed Racer, Iron Man and Indiana Jones franchises. Never mind that these games aren't directly related to the new movies, or that the games are universally awful (well, almost) -- once that old clunker of a game gets attached to a hot new movie, the asking price can get inflated by up to 170%.

We can almost see the logic behind the increased demand, from the average consumer's perspective. After all, why waste $50 on the crappy new Iron Man game that junior is begging for when you can pick up a crappy old Iron Man game for half the price (even after accounting for the recent uptick). The little punk won't know the difference anyway, and the game will get him out of your hair so you can get back to having an affair with the pool boy. It's win-win!

Used Video Game Pricing is a somewhat sporadically published blog that tracks game prices and follows how they change over time. Hey, at least someone is doing the work out there so we don't have to. They have an interesting article up detailing how the price of games released in the last two years tend to drop in price (not value ... you can pry Halo 2 from our cold, blistered fingers) by 60%.

Which is a bit of bad news for those of you waiting on price drops for all of the upcoming titles that will be blasting us until the end of the year. Who can wait eight months? Although if you manage to wait that long, you can pick up two for less than the price of one. Interestingly enough, games that were released more than two years ago only drop in price by 20%, meaning that your copy of Whacked! might still actually hold some value, both monetarily and sentimentally.

Don't have a PSP but that recent $30 price cut just put it within your financial grasp? Then we'll not only advise that you look for additional employment, but we'll direct you towards this handy article at Curmudgeon Gamer that addresses some of the tired, specious arguments you may have seen propagated on this here internet. Namely, that the PSP has no games and, what games it does have, require a second mortgage to finance.

Some observations: the $50 PSP game is gone (the vaporous Oblivion for PSP notwithstanding), replaced by the much more amenable $40 game; EB Games lists 102 new games for the DS and 94 for the PSP; the average cost of a game on each platform is only off by $2.54; and the median price for each system is a common $29.99. With Sony telling teens to "get their own," convincing the chronically underemployed that PSP games are affordable is more important than ever.

The data is available on Curmudgeon Gamer in a variety of formats if anyone cares to remix it ... or make us a more attractive 425 pixel wide chart! Update: Thanks for the chart, Steve!

[Via PSP Fanboy]

PlayStation 3 games will cost $59.99 here in the US. You expected it, we expected it, but with all the silly hullabaloo over those insane Japanese prices, we really just needed Sony to confirm it -- and they have.

Now that's solid communication: wait until people flip out, then clear things up. Why these prices couldn't have been announced sooner is anyone's guess.

Maybe companies prefer it that way. It's not that they're keeping us in the dark, it's that they're keeping their competition in the dark until the last possible moment, making it harder for rivals to prep price-related promotions timed to disrupt launch plans.

Or maybe they just love to keep us buzzing about it over here on the blogs.

Our friendly anonymous source at Microsoft has provided us with a few more details concerning the 360 accessories announced back at E3.

Perhaps the most important involves the bundling of the Xbox Live Vision camera with a wired headset, the popular Live Arcade title UNO, and a month of Live Gold service for $39.99 when it releases in the States on September 19, 2006.

Granted, this is still an unofficial report (based on a leak of "official" info), so understand that you're probably not gonna get much confirmation from MS until they're good and ready to give it. If you'd like information on what other peripherals are coming out "Holiday 2006" (so sometime in the 4th quarter) and at what price, read on for more.

The first round of 3rd party Xbox 360 game price cuts is upon us! $39.99 will now bag you a copy of Burnout: Revenge, Amped, Madden NFL 06, NBA 2K6, NBA Live 06, NHL 2K6, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 or King Kong. The price cut is now in effect at major online retailers and is expected to hit brick and mortar retail stores soon. 3rd party games that are still at $59.99 include: Quake 4, Call of Duty 2, Gun, Need for Speed Most Wanted and Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.

Now, before you rush to call your broker with the intent to sell all your MSFT stock (or, more likely, proclaim in the comments thread of this article that this is a sign that the Xbox 360 is going under), hold on a second and take a breath. Cutting prices after a game has been around for a while is not a new thing. Some of these games have been available for up to 6 months: as Michael Pachter puts it "games are always discounted as they age, and last week's reduction of prices on select Xbox 360 games is part of this normal aging process." Going forward, he expects Xbox 360 games to settle into a system where we see the "first price cuts to $49.99 two or three months after release, and with $10 incremental cuts every 60 days thereafter." Just don't forget your change.

[Update: don't call your broker or your accountant. Well, you can if you haven't said hi in a while! Thanks youzer.]