PSP Minis

1. 

   JeremyR
   Member

   Do you think we will ever see sales and such on minis?

   Sales are pretty rare on PSN in general, but haven't seen any on minis so far (granted, it's only been 2 1/2 months). Still, the only real price movement I've noticed is one actually getting more expensive (Mahjongg Artifacts 2 going to $4.99 from $3.99).

   By contrast, it seems like sales are really common on the iPhone (which I don't have, but have been following a little since the minis thing launched, hoping to see what we might end up with) and the casual games market (Big Fish Games, which carries PC versions of some of the minis, has one game on sale all the time for $2.99, vs their normal price of $6.99. And free games on occasion, even).

   Just for an example, Vempire. That's one of the minis I'm thinking about getting. But it's still $4.99. By contrast, on the iPhone, it launched at $1.99. Then it dropped to 99 cents. Then a few weeks later, shortly going back to $1.99, but now it's down to 99 cents again.

   Same with the game that went up in price on the PSP - Mahjongg Artifacts 2 - apparently it's frequently fluctuated between $2.99 and 99 cents.

   I don't mind paying $1 more, but it seems like PSP owners are really getting treated poorly, charging $2 and up (sometimes, way, way up, Beaterator, for instance, is $40 on the PSP, $5 on the iPhone. That's not a mini though, and a couple functions are missing, but that's still a huge difference).

   Edit: Let me just give major props to Halfbrick, who price their minis the same as they do on XBLA ($3)

   Posted 8 months ago #
2. 

   riki2cool
   Member

   They price minis high because it aint cheap to get the minis tested.
   Also it requires time to convert it into psp.

   Posted 8 months ago #
3. 

   JeremyR
   Member

   Yeah, $800 to get a game rated by the ESRB isn't cheap. But is that really worth a $4 price increase per title over the iPhone version? In the long run, people would be better off simply getting an ipod touch.

   Posted 8 months ago #
4. 

   Rein
   Member

   I've bought over 100 games from the PSN Store so I don't mind paying a little extra sometimes, but when I read about Minis that are going for more than 5 euros/dollars on the PSN Store while they're being sold for 99 cents on Apple's store then I get frustrated and less inclined to purchase products (also in the future) from those publishers who try to rip me off. Maybe they don't try to rip me off intentionally, but that's how it feels.

   Posted 1 week ago #
5. 

   Carson
   Member

   They price minis high because it aint cheap to get the minis tested.
   Also it requires time to convert it into psp.

   
   its part this, but really the minis' userbase is really small in comparison. (minis as a whole only reached 1 million downloads a couple months ago, but several IOS games individually have reached have gotten over a million sales) to make up for this, some devs need to overcharge to get a equal amount of money from the minis port.

   and also, because the average minis are five bucks, it is acceptable for developers to price their games on the more expensive side because that is the typical price. in other words, if service A's games are about an average of $80, and service B's games are twenty dollars, even though the developers's/publisher's were ok with their game being $20 on service A and its near the exact same game on each service, they charge $80 on service B because they can get away with it alot easier on this service.

   theres also some minis that feature more content than thier IOS counterparts, fortunately.
   for example, fieldrunners, although more expensive than the Iphone version, includes all the addon content, and I believe Tehra has more abilities on minis (I dont think she can jump on the Iphone).
   (of course this is a two way street, due to minis restrictions some minis lack features like multiplayer.)

   Posted 1 week ago #
6. 

   Rein
   Member

   It's a catch-22 isn't it. (Some) developers overprice PSP games because there aren't enough customers to cover their expenses. There aren't enough customers to cover their expenses as long as they overprice their products. Something's gotta give.

   Posted 1 week ago #

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