$60 Man's Sky

A post on the official US Playstation Blog this morning had, briefly, the preorder date and price listed for Hello Games' upcoming space exploration game No Man's Sky. To whit: preorders open on March 3rd (tomorrow) for $60.

It's still unclear who is actually outraged about the price, but the lack of a scandal won't stop Twitter from kicking off about it. Dozens of furious tweets poured onto the internet, decrying the (very possibly non-existent) idiots who thought $60 was too much to pay for No Man's Sky, based on one blog post that suggested that the small development team size might be one reason that customers might see the price tag as excessive.

Of course, people will complain about the price and team size will undoubtedly enter the conversation now (albeit only because of the Twitterstorm). But nobody justifies Battlefield's price tag by pointing out how many people worked on it, in the face of complaints about a campaign lasting "only" four hours or a lack of multiplayer maps. And with billions of planets to explore, it'll be difficult to argue that Hello Games haven't provided enough content despite their small team.

I happen to think that the price tag on No Man's Sky is going to hurt sales - simply because nobody seems entirely sure, yet, of what the game is. It's still a big question mark, and $60 is a not-inconsiderable amount of money to drop on an unknown quantity.