Not happy with the recent price rise in games to £50? Well your wallet could take more of a battering with games costing up to £70. Sony's former European executive says games should rise in price to meet the costs of production these days. So down the line gaming could become a quite expensive hobby.

Sony’s former European President thinks the average cost of a blockbuster videogame should rise to £70 ($115/€82).

Only a price jump would ensure a continued supply of groundbreaking games, according to Chris Deering, who noted the huge increase in development costs in recent years.

“In order to price these games at a level where they would support an industry [as strongly as] they did ten years ago, they’d have to be sold at £70”, Deering told MCV, a games trade website.

He was speaking to the games trade website in response to this month's decision by Activision to raise the recommended retail price of Modern Warfare 2 from £45 to £55. The publisher blamed a weak pound as well as record development costs.

But getting UK gamers to pay higher price tags for blockbuster titles will be very difficult: a psychological glass ceiling dictates how much consumers are willing to pay for top-ranking titles, Deering says.

“The cost of development is ten times what it was for PS2. Yet there are lots of things you can get for less than the relative value of paying 50p an hour for a very high end game."

Slumpy monkey via reghardware.co.uk »