After announcing the release of Red Dead Redemption, including its Undead Nightmare expansion, on PS4 and Switch, the $50 pricing and the non-remastered state was divisive among the fanbase. During a Take-Two earnings call following the announcement, IGN asked CEO Strauss Zelnick for clarifications about the pricing choice. “That's just what we believe is the commercially accurate price for it,” Zelnick replied.

IGN followed by asking if Undead Nightmare was the reason for its $50 price, to which Zelnick said that the expansion “was a great standalone game in its own right when it was originally released, so we feel like it's a great bundle for the first time, and certainly a great value for consumers.”

While he was vague about a potential PC release, the CEO had the following to say for the choice of a port over a remaster:

"It depends on the vision that the creative teams have for a title, and in the absence of having a powerful vision, for something that we would do with a title, we might bring it in its original form, we've done that, and in certain instances we might remaster or remake, so it really depends on the title and how the label feels about it, the platform, and what we think the opportunity is for consumers."

SOURCE

 

[Foxi4]

Ugh, GAME? That's the U.K.'s most overpriced game store there is. You'd be better off using Amazon for an MSRP.

However, in this case their pricing is correct as Amazon shows the same price: B0CFB8XRR6 (it doesn't show on GBATemp for some reason so I'll just leave that reference)

This'll probably still sell millions, but it's obviously overpriced. $14.99-24.99 would have been a more sensible price for a port. Rockstar copying Nintendo's tactics on selling old games overpriced.

I always shop at GAME and it’s always been best value for money to me, you just need to know how to spot a good deal. Their membership offers wipe the floor with Amazon, especially if you’re on a constant game rotation, which I am - I pick up nearly every major new release. I can’t even begin to recall how many times I scored a game for less than a fiver, either because I had a bunch of loyalty points with them or because it was on a sale. This is doubly true if I’m buying stuff from PSN - why would I buy games digitally directly from Sony and get nothing when I can buy a PSN card in GAME and get part of the value back onto my loyalty card, not to mention that this stacks with PlayStation Stars? Yeah, you go on ahead and stick with Amazon - I can guarantee you that I pay less for my games, even if the MSRP for day 1 releases *seems* £1-2 higher in GAME. That difference evaporates when you consider that I get 10% back on anything I buy - once you factor that in, GAME is cheaper, and it is not close.

Example:

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon - £59.99 direct from Amazon, currently £52.99 on a sale (plus shipping), *or* £54.99 in GAME, *except* I get £5.50 back plus an additional £5 back on a membership deal, so yeah, I paid £2 extra, but I’m getting £10.50 off my next game. My next £50-£60 title is actually £39.50-£49.50, and I’ll get points back on that too. Better value long-term.

Long story short, I haven’t paid full MSRP for a new release in years. If I pay more than £40-ish a pop, something truly unusual has happened - busy month, maybe. If I was buying individual titles once in a blue moon you’d be right, saving £2-3 at a time would make sense. In my case it doesn’t.

EDIT: I just realised that your point was to pick a retailer to check MSRP, not so much to pick the best deal. Sorry bub, I’m a little bit out of sorts, it’s been a long day. In any case, if accurate MSRP was my aim, I’d probably just check the digital storefronts, Amazon notoriously sells software under MSRP (if only by a small fraction) in an attempt to get other retailers out of business. Their pricing is rarely representative of the recommended retail price, they’ll happily lose money on margin and make it up in shipping costs or Prime. I don’t even factor shipping into my calculus since I can throw a stone and take one of GAME’s windows out, it’s actually less hassle for me to buy stuff there instead of waiting for a package.

 

[JeepX87]

After saw reviews, I decided to buy this game for Switch and I can tell - game run smooth in handheld mode and looks better than PS3 version that I had 13 years ago.

but... it is not worth unless it is $30.

Wait until on sale, you can grab for much less money.

 

[CMDreamer]

Such a dislikable company, this one.

As much as Rockstar Games is, they're twins.

 

[Marc_LFD]

I read that this port is somewhat better than the Xbox, but in no way is it worth the asking price.

Wait for a reduction.

 

[JeepX87]

I played RDR on Xbox 360 and PS3, and noticed significant difference was resolution, so RDR is played on PS3 at lower resolution because it was difficult to program the game with cell processor, but get used to it quickly if play for long time.

Post automatically merged: Aug 19, 2023

I do feel if RDR is successful, Rockstar could port GTA IV GTA V and Midnight Club: LA to Switch in near future.

 

[ChronosNotashi]

So it’s a port, and doesn’t warrant the full retail price tag of a brand new title - this was my only point of contention, the price. If they want customers to pay more, I expect to get more in return - the game should be remastered to some degree to warrant it. It appears that the UK distributor agrees with me on this since rather than going for the usual “$1=£1” unfavourable conversion rate, the game was priced £39.99 in the UK, not £49.99.

https://www.game.co.uk/en/red-dead-redemption-2919035

This changes my calculus somewhat, since they went for the actual USD-GBP exchange rate, as opposed to the usual “fleecing” standard. I do consider that to be cheaper than average, and might actually end up picking it up, if only to avoid disc shuffling on my part. We’ll see. I want to see the performance - if it looks and plays worse than the XB1-enhanced version then there’s less than no point in spending money for a worse experience.

Late, but I pretty much do have to agree with you here. For as much as people gripe about Nintendo re-releases being overpriced, when it's not a straight up (localized) port like with Fire Emblem, Nintendo has at the very least enhanced the graphics in some cases (ex: the visual difference between GC Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime Remastered are like night and day). I know people here are going to argue "oh, but you can do the exact same thing through emulator", but that does require people being willing to go through steps (regardless of legality) to emulate and mod 15-20+ year old games. And even then, you can only try to "enhance" the graphics so far before higher-grade "remaster" work is needed (or your PC hardware needs to be upgraded to handle it, if not already upgraded to mid/high-tier specs already). Again, doesn't necessarily justify the price tags (I'm actually with you guys that the pricing can be a tad excessive sometimes), but it shows that Nintendo's at least willing to make certain re-releases more appealing in some way.

Red Dead Redemption, though? It's a straight-up port, with no remastered graphics even on PS4/PS5, no increased/removed FPS cap for those consoles, and certain content (read: multiplayer) just plain removed. The only real upside I've seen from gaming news is that the game...actually runs pretty decently on the Switch (reported to be a consistent 30fps in most cases, unlike with the GTA Trilogy "remaster"), which is both surprising (given R*'s recent record) and not surprising (given the PS3-tier non-cloud games on the system already). The big problem, though, is that the RDR port is $50 USD on all platforms, when there's no reason for that price tag other than pure greed from R*. If it weren't for that, the Switch version would actually not be a bad option for those who couldn't (legally) get their hands on the game in the past.

Might be a good option for Switch during a sale, though.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Looks good on both.

I do like the darker Xbox version, though.

 

[ZeroFX]

As much as Rockstar Games is, they're twins.

It goes without saying!

 

[HextarVigar]

Such a dislikable company, this one.

I pirate. I laugh.