Ubisoft Gives Explanation For Console Game High Digital Price

The online stores for consoles have some inconsistencies and finally one of the big publishers is giving us some answers. Ubisoft reported their Q1 results today during a conference call with one of their investors to discuss the financials and it’s more than $60 million in digital sales. An analyst asked the question that a lot of gamers have been wondering, why do digital games cost so much more than the physical version on consoles?

An example would be if you were to go and buy the disk copy of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity for the Playstation 4, here is the price you would pay at example Amazon

• Amazon: £28

And here is what you’d pay for the digital copy:

• Playstation Store: £54.99

As you can see that is nearly double the amount for a download, Ubisoft Chief executive officer Yves Guillemot explained why that is.

“Digital games don’t react as fast on console as they do on PC,” said Guillemot. “What we can say is that when games are older than one year, digital is a lot more dynamic on console because there are less units in stores. It’s a new business and new trend.”

Keeping pressure on physical sales is the main goal for Ubisoft.

“We want to get rid of the stocks in stores before lowering the price on digital,” said Guillemot.

To put it short the extra £20+ that you’re paying for downloading a game is for inventory management for the publisher. In order to keep retailers happy so they don’t regret ordering huge amounts of orders for an Ubisoft game and it ensures they will order big orders in the future.

Thankfully, Guillemot suspects that this scenario will only be temporary as it will only last as long as the physical copy is the dominant way to purchase video games for consoles Xbox One and Playstation 4.

Do you buy your games digitally or retail?

Thank you VBGAMESBEAT for providing us with this information