Recently, both Nintendo and Microsoft have announced their moves into $80 game territory with Mario Kart World and future AAA Xbox titles, respectively - and now it sounds like other companies could be considering following suit.
In a new chat at PAX East this past weekend, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford was asked about the price of Borderlands 4, and whether they or publisher 2K were considering raising its price above the now-standard $70. Here's what Pitchford had to say:
"We're going to have a price set soon. It might be the new price that Nintendo and Microsoft have led with. It might be that we stay back. It's going to be the people at the publishing house that decide that. We'll know soon. I think it's going to be fine, whatever the [price is]. It's worth it."
Pitchford seems confident in the next Borderlands title whatever the upfront cost, with the Gearbox head also mentioning that BL4 has had "more than twice" the development budget of 2019's Borderlands 3. Pitchford also elaborated on some of the other factors impacting game prices right now:
"It's an interesting time. On one level, we've got a competitive marketplace where people who make [pricing] choices want to sell as many units as possible and they want to be careful about people that are price-sensitive,
So there are some folks who don't want to see prices go up, even the ones deciding what the prices are. There are other folks accepting the reality that game budgets are increasing and there are tariffs for the retail packaging. It's getting gnarly out there."
While there's bound to be this '$80 debate' cropping up now with upcoming AAA titles, it's perhaps another 2K release that's under the microscope in this regard, rather than Borderlands 4. The publishing giant also plans to release GTA 6 next May - a video game that's had exceptionally high budgets and dev costs over an almost 10-year period.
For now, nothing has been said about the future of 2K game pricing, so we'll just have to see how this one shakes out for the team's 2025 releases and beyond.