Speaking at the BMO conference,THQ president Brian Farrell told the audience that the current $60 price point for console games is "keeping people out" and that moving to $40 would be in the industry's benefit.
"Investors are thinking 'can we hold the $59.99 price point?'," Farrell told the audience. "And what we're thinking about the business is turning it on its head a little bit - it's not how high a price we can get, but how many users we can get."
"It's one of the things we've learned from China and Korea. If you can capture everyone under that you can make the most money."
The THQ president then cited his company's MX vs ATV game as an example: "When we launched it at $59.99, we'd do some units, and then when we brought the price down to the mass market-friendly price of $39.99, it would just pop. It's a very mass market title."
"So the thinking this time is, let's initially launch at $39.99 - it's a very robust game, very high quality, so this is not about trying to get a secondary title out."
Farrell then noted that DLC has traditionally contributed 15 to 20 percent of THQ games revenue, but "with a series of downloadable content so people can extend their experience, people might end up spending $129.99 [on a single game]."
