Microsoft Accidentally Charges $800 for Arcade Game

[John Funk]

Microsoft Accidentally Charges $800 for Arcade Game

When setting prices for your games, you should be careful to make sure that you're setting them in the right currency.

To the right, you see a screenshot of the Xbox Live Arcade listing for Polar Panic, an Xbox Live Arcade game that is scheduled to be released tomorrow. Seems pretty standard to me, right? Nothing special about it, just another XBLA game...

...with a price tag of $800. Oh, huh. Talk about your premium pricing, wow. The developers must either think they have a really, really good game, or they're shooting for the "We'll make a profit by selling our game to the 20 people dumb enough to buy it for four-fifths of a grand" business model. Which there may be some validity to, of course.

In all seriousness, this is certainly just an error on Microsoft's part - someone meant to type in "800 MS Points" (or $10) and ended up pricing the game at 80 times that. Let's hope it gets corrected by the time the game comes out, or the poor Polar Panic folks might find their game not selling as well as they'd hoped.

(BLPGaming [http://www.blpgaming.com/beta/news/218/microsoft-charging-800/])

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[HardRockSamurai]

Kinda reminds me of when Battlefield 1943, and Microsoft accidentally made the game cost 90,000 MS points for Silver level members.

Someone at Microsoft really needs to get their eyes checked.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Kinda reminds me of when Battlefield 1943, and Microsoft accidentally made the game cost 90,000 MS points for Silver level members.

Someone at Microsoft really needs to get their eyes checked.

Better 90,000 MS points than 90,000 dollars at least

I say we buy the game and then sue Microsoft! Because that's the American way!

 

[Distorted Stu]

This happens all the time in supermarkets. Things get priced wrong all the time. I still remember the day my Freddo Bar cost me £1000 when i scanned it :')

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Now all Microsoft needs to do is release a gold-plated 360 to match their $800 games, it's a perfect fit!

 

[Slycne]

Maybe this will be a nice push to finally stop using space credits and just let us see, and purchase, real currency amounts.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

"Accidental" AH hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

We all know that's a crock of shit Microsoft!

 

[ScarlettRage]

wow epic fail.
i thought they couldnt be any stupider

 

[John Funk]

wow epic fail.
i thought they couldnt be any stupider

Oh come on, like you've never made a typo

 

[Wintermoot]

I did knew Microsoft likes money but that is insane!

 

[ScarlettRage]

wow epic fail.
i thought they couldnt be any stupider

Oh come on, like you've never made a typo

nope. cause i am amazing haha
that and i dont like Microsoft very much

 

[Cherry Cola]

wow epic fail.
i thought they couldnt be any stupider

Oh come on, like you've never made a typo

She just did actually.
Her I isn't in caps.
She spelled couldn't wrong.
And, while this is not a typo, she wrote stupider, which isn't really the correct term. It's supposed to be dumber.

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Yes, accidentally. Can I call shenanighans now?

 

[Armored Prayer]

Hehehe, I should trick some people into buying this.

Also, for some reason the image is not appearing for me.

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

I still remember the day my Freddo Bar cost me £1000 when i scanned it :')

Wow, you could buy 10,000 Freddos with that.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

You know...a Lost Odyssey DLC was horridly mispriced awhile back, too.

Something like 90,000 MS, iirc.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Maybe this will be a nice push to finally stop using space credits and just let us see, and purchase, real currency amounts.

But how would they hide the true price from us then? They've already used up Service Tax, V.A.T, Billing Charges and all the other ways to inflate the price. All they need to do is bring in the equivalent of Oyster cards [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card] linked to your bank account with instantaneous micro-transactions and our entire salary will be theirs.

I mean...it's not like it's real money, is it?

 

[pignoli]

Which is why they should just use money. It works for Steam.
The whole MSfunBuxx!! thing always seemed a bit off to me - surely there is a cost in using some stupid arbitrary exchange system that could be avoided by using real money. That is unless, of course, they think that the extra income from a customer confusion factor produced by using nonsensical currencies outweighs this cost. Which would seem to be the case.

 

[Hazy]

Now all we need is somebody to buy it at that price, and my day will have officially been made.

 

[Xanadu84]

I hope people accusing Microsoft of doing this on purpose are kidding. Even from the perspective of sheer greed, and even if you totally ignore the PR aspect, you will make a lot more money selling the game for $10 to many, many people, as opposed to selling it to 1 dude who needs glasses and doesn't worry about his own money enough to look at a price tag.

It is a bit odd that there are so many typos, though. Sounds like someone at Microsoft needs a stern talking to, or a pair of reading glasses.