Overwatch Console Development and Pricing
11/7/2015
Written By: Victor S.
Edited By: Jessyca Y.
Leading up to Blizzcon, Blizzard has finally released information on the pricing and has given a more solid release date for Overwatch, their upcoming team-based arena shooter. Some of the community was under the assumption that Blizzard would follow in the footsteps of Team Fortress 2, Valve’s massively successful stylized class-based shooter, and adopt a free-to-play model. Blizzard, however, has opted to use the pricing you would see on newly-released games and a couple extra versions with exclusive content available for an increased price. The pricing is as follows:
Standard Edition (PC digital download only.)
$39.99
Origin Edition (PC available in digital and retail copies. PS4 and Xbox One retail only.)
Includes extra hero skins and digital extras for other Blizzard titles.
$59.99
Collector’s Edition (Only retail versions available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.)
Includes your standard collectors edition bonuses: soundtrack, artbook, figures, etc.
$129.99
These prices are typical of what you’d see with a AAA console release, but are unusual to see for an arena-based shooter. A shooter of this nature would usually be free-to-start with each character/skin/weapon costing a set amount. These “micotransactions” would make up the game’s profits. The purchasing price is probably implemented as a way of making Overwatch more “console friendly” so that it is more appealing to the console market, with a larger amount of content for a lump sum, as opposed to a free-to-play model.
The console market is something Blizzard has dabbled in for years, but only within the last few years have they had a major release with Diablo 3. For Diablo, the sales on each individual console were much less than the PC release, but all-together, the sales between the four consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One) did end up being roughly the same as the PC numbers. The lack of sales on the individual consoles could be attributed to the fact that Diablo 3 was released for console a while after the PC release. With Overwatch being developed for the console from the get-go, Blizzard could potentially expand the market for their games. If Overwatch performs well on the consoles, this could mean seeing future Blizzard games being released on home consoles in the future.
A potential issue with Blizzard moving to console would be patching the game. Blizzard is known for releasing constant balance patches for their many competitive online games, something that has to be done to ensure an online game stays fair and without exploits. Having to keep track of developing patches for three separate systems, each of which will have their own host of problems, will take more resources to keep track of. There are many instances of multi-platform games releasing patches for console versions of game long after an issue was been dealt with on PC. Let’s just hope the cost of this development doesn’t catch up to the consumer.
Overwatch is set to release spring 2016.
Sources:
Overwatch information and graphics
http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/buy/