Xbox One News: Cheaper Digital Games Could Be In the Works According to Microsoft

Microsoft made waves when they raised some of the prices for Xbox One digital games, angering fans over the company's attempt to squeeze more money from fans. However, it looks as though the company is reevaluating their digital store prices so that they are more competitive and save gamers some more money when they surf the online store for titles.

This news comes from Microsoft executive Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, who commented on a Reddit consisting of fans angry over the price hike found on the Xbox Marketplace. Major Nelson said that "We are way aware of this and many of the concerns of the community," and that tweaking their digital download prices to make them more competitive is "on the agenda."

This would definitely help Xbox One owners, and considering that Microsoft focused intently on the digital future of the video game industry in the months before the Xbox One was released it is frankly shocking that the company has not focused more on their online store. With Microsoft's original plan to have the Xbox One download physical games on to the hard drive and their frequent comments on how the video game industry is increasing digital, having the Xbox Marketplace have overpriced games is not something the company needs to deal with.

This price hike that has fans angry was implemented in December 2013, where the European Xbox Live Marketplace raised prices for several Xbox One games such as Forza Motorsport 5 and Ryse: Son of Rome without warning. This made several fans in Europe feel as though they were being punished for wanting to buy digital copies of games and fans in other regions were worried that Microsoft would raise the price of new games in their areas as well. However, Major Nelson's words seem to show that perhaps Microsoft is planning to help out gamers and encourage digital sales in the future,
To compare Microsoft's Marketplace to the PlayStation Store, Sony has several ways to encourage users to buy digital games and subscribe to the PlayStation Plus premium subscription service. Subscribing to PlayStation Plus offers users discounts on games across the PlayStation Store and users can gain access to free games every month through the service as well. Microsoft offers users no such discounts for subscribing to Xbox Live Gold, and their Games With Gold program offers two free games a month. However, Microsoft has been criticized for offering older games on the service rather than more current games that fans would be more interested in.