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As Nintendo takes the first step toward selling full-priced, AAA games at $80 and Xbox starts to follow suit but backs off, EA has now also made its position clear: no $80 games…for now.
“We’re not looking to make any changes on pricing at this stage,” said CEO Andrew Wilson during today’s Q1 earnings call. He said this in response to an investor question regarding publishing competitors beginning to release $80 games, and where EA sees itself in relation to them.
Wilson continued:
That’s in the construct of, we already offer a fairly broad pricing scheme across our various products. When you think about everything from free-to-play through to our premium products and deluxe editions, our orientation is always to capture the full spectrum of pricing so that we can serve players in the best way possible and offer them the greatest value. We’ll continue to look at opportunities to deliver great value to our players thorugh various pricing schemes over the course of time, but no dramatic changes planned yet.
EA also confirmed on the call that it hadn’t factored in any changes to its existing pricing schemes to its expectations for the current fiscal year earnings guidance. The current fiscal year ends in March of 2026, so don’t expect any $80 EA games between now and then. That means games like Madden NFL 26, EA Sports FC 26, and seemingly Battlefield 6 won’t be $80, despite one leaker suggesting the contrary.
EA isn’t the only publisher who isn’t quite ready to follow suit with Nintendo’s Mario Kart World on $80 games. Xbox recently announced The Outer Worlds 2 would be $80 alongside some other unknown holiday game releases, only to reverse that decision after it sparked criticism. And while Randy Pitchford defended a potential $80 price point for Borderlands 4, it turned out to only be $70 after all. Apart from that, it’s unclear what other games will aim for that higher number in the future, though one likely contender that many are watching is Grand Theft Auto 6.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
