Xbox lowers the price of The Outer Worlds 2 from $80 to $70

Xbox has officially lowered the price of The Outer Worlds 2 from $80 to $70, mere months ahead of its release on October 29.

Developer Obsidian Entertainment announced the news via social media through the lens of in-game speech. In a statement to IGN yesterday, an Xbox spokesperson said the company will keep its “full-priced holiday releases, including The Outer Worlds 2, at $69.99—in line with current market conditions.”

In addition, refunds and reimbursements for those who have already pre-ordered the game for the original price will be available via the storefront or location it was bought at. Xbox added that customers should expect refund notifications as well.

Microsoft announced the price back on June 8, making The Outer Worlds 2 the first Xbox Game Studios game to cost $80. The news came a month after Xbox announced an increase in console and controller prices in all eligible markets worldwide, as well as the possibility that first-party games could be priced $80 moving forward.

“We understand that these changes are challenging, and they were made with careful consideration given market conditions and the rising cost of development,” the company said in the announcement at the time, following quarterly financial reports stating a decline in Xbox hardware revenue.

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Pricing changes at Xbox and Nintendo

The news around The Outer Worlds 2 pricing echoes the case of the Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World, which launched alongside the console at $80. In April, Nintendo of America boss Doug Bowser said the situation is an example of the “variable pricing” philosophy that has been adopted by the company. Similar to Xbox, it‛s not the universal price tag moving forward, but depending on the game, first-party titles could be sold for $80.Elsewhere, the latest wave of redundancies at Xbox impacted workers across a myriad of levels, teams, and geographies. Staffers at the company’s ZeniMax Media subsidiary told Game Developer how they were blindsided by the way the cuts were communicated to employees, and what they meant for the studio, especially to people who had been there for over a decade.”Some people were here for 15 years and cut out,” ZeniMax Media senior QA tester and ZWU-CWA member Autumn Mitchell said. “Making it so that people have to rush to type a goodbye message into Slack to their colleagues that they’ve been working with on various projects, that have been making your corporation money for 15 years, is disgusting. It’s disgusting. If I could get any message to any executive right now it would be review this process because it’s not normal and it’s not okay.”

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