$80 Games Are Already Here

While many are waiting to see if Rockstar Games decides to price GTA 6 at 80 or more, the video game market already has games at that price point, they've just gone more under the radar. Two more have been announced just this month but may have been missed amid the Summer Game Fest craze. Back in June 2025, Nintendo was the first major company to ask 10 more than the standard 70 rate with Mario Kart World. It was included with a 500 bundle that also included a console, so the effective price of the game was lower, but it was 80 for anyone who bought the game alone. Now that Nintendo discontinued that bundle, everyone has to pay 80 for Mario Kart World. Nintendo said it charged 80 for the game because it has so much value. Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida defended Nintendo's decision, saying people could not reasonably expect prices to stay the same despite rising development costs and larger scopes. Mario Kart World. The 80 price for Mario Kart World is for both the digital and physical editions. In March this year, Nintendo announced that it would begin a new pricing strategy whereby digital and physical games would cost different prices, beginning with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book in May. That game cost 60 digitally and 70 physically. Explaining the price differences, Nintendo said this reflects the different costs associated with producing and distributing each format, and it offers players choice, the company said. Nintendo also reminded everyone that individual retailers set their own prices--Walmart, for example, discounted the physical versions of Nintendo games already to match the digital prices. More 80 games So far in June, we've learned about two more games that will cost 80 when they release, and they're both also Switch 2 titles. Elden Ring for Switch 2 will be 80 when it launches in August with its Tarnished Edition physically and with a Game-Key Card; this is a physical cartridge with a download code. The Tarnished Edition includes the base game, the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, four new armor sets, two new starting classes, and other digital items. The new Fire Emblem game revealed during the Nintendo Direct will also be 80 for its physical edition (though we don't know yet if it's a Game-Key Card). The digital edition, meanwhile, costs 70 as part of Nintendo's new pricing strategy. They will pay Former Nintendo PR manager Kit Ellis said Nintendo is charging 80 for the game because it can. Nintendo knows fans of that series are as die-hard as they come; they want the game physical and they will pay the premium. Ellis said he expects 2027's Xenoblade Genesis to also cost 80 for the same reason. What comes next It is not a stretch to believe that other publishers will start charging 80 or more for new releases. After all, there is already data that says people are ready and willing to pay 80 for games. Analyst Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics said the floodgates are now open.” He expects every publisher in video games that can raise prices to do so. Microsoft, for its part, said in 2025 that it would begin charging 80 for its big new games in 2025, but the company canceled those plans and has never charged more than 70 for a big new release's standard edition. Sony, meanwhile, is holding steady at 70 as well for major new releases. A Bank of America stock analyst recently said Rockstar should charge 80 for GTA 6 to help convince the industry at large to raise prices as well. GTA 6. Rockstar owner Take-Two was among the first to hike prices from 60 to 70, with the company pricing NBA 2K21 at 70 back in 2020, citing development budgets that have increased by as much as 300 in the past 10 years. The company later said it saw “no pushback” to the new 70 price being the new price for major releases at Take-Two and many other publishers. Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said major new releases have actually come down in price over the years when you consider how inflation has affected pretty much everything else you buy these days. The 60 in 2013 dollars that GTA 5 cost at launch is now more than 85 in 2026 dollars, for example. Games have held steady in the 60-70 range for 10 years, and that “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Zelnick said, with many theorizing that what Zelnick meant here was that GTA 6 could be priced higher. That would not be surprising, but some believe it won't go as high as 100 because Rockstar is keen to funnel people into the game to push them to whatever the developer has in store for the next evolution of GTA Online that is surely coming. Experts have said games not going up in price is causing major issues for the AAA game market. No significant increases help explain why publishers push DLC and microtransactions so much to help cover the costs of ballooning budgets, according to experts and industry veterans. Things like deluxe editions of games, meanwhile, can sell for 80 or more, and the included items--like extra skins and digital weapons--are basically free to develop. Publishers could also look to product placement to help manage costs, and that's a future people generally do not want to see. Prices should have gone up already Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden said in 2025 that the price of new games should have gone up with every new console generation for the past 20 years. That largely did not happen, and now the industry is worse off for it, he said. I think it's because everyone's afraid, he told GI.biz. No one wants to be the first one to raise the price, because you're afraid to lose traffic. So what you do is you just end up eating into your operating income, your profit margin. There were more sports cars in the parking lot in the PS1 era than there were in the PS4 era, because if you're selling 20 million units at 60 for something that only cost you 10 million to make, that's different than selling 20 million units at 60 for something that cost you 160 million to make. If more companies raise prices to 80 or more for new games, that doesn't mean developers will stop hawking things like microtransactions, DLC, and battle passes--these efforts will likely continue in concert with price hikes. In life, products and services across all categories tend to get more expensive over time, and there is no reason to believe games would be any different. In fact, the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics just announced today, June 10, that inflation in May rose to 4.2, the highest level in three years. It was up from 3.8 in April, and it's the third month in the row that the Consumer Price Index has gone up. The ongoing increases to inflation are stoking the theories that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in a bid to slow spending and bring down inflation. Inflation is going up, in part, due to the ongoing war in Iran that has sent oil and gas prices soaring. Beyond the price of games, the price of gaming hardware continues to go up and up, due in part to the global macroeconomic environment. Microsoft and Sony have already raised console prices, and Nintendo will follow next with a Switch 2 price hike in September. Just recently, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said Microsoft will need to come up radically different business models to help mitigate rising hardware prices against the backdrop of Project Helix. “We’ve reached a point where it will be hard to imagine that mass audiences can afford 1000s of dollars to spend on a console generation. We'll see radically different business models that we never expected start to come into orbit later this year, she said, without elaborating further. No one likes to pay more, but increasing costs are easier to stomach when people are getting paid more to offset, or mitigate, the increased costs of things they need and want. But that isn't always the case, either. In fact, the federal minimum wage in the US is still 7.25/hour, though dozens of states have their own minimum wages that are significantly higher. Beyond all of this, the upcoming SpaceX IPO and the millionaires to be minted out of it is only furthering the growing wealth-disparity issue in America. For now, people should expect to pay more for games, hardware, and everything else in life. Hooray?