Entertainment hour per dollar

Tim at ook-ook.net argued that XBLA games are fairly priced in comparison to the entertainment time they provide.

According to his logic, the dollar per hour for a couple of XBLA deemed too expensive by some users is actually on par with a night at the movies. He even compares that to a couple of the full-fledged games showing that an XBLA game is probably a bargain.

I find that interesting because I've done similar comparisons on comparing Halo 2 coupled with the cost of XBL, and the value crushes any PS2 game I have ever purchased.

Although inaccurate, Let's say I've played 2,000 Halo 2 games that clock in at 10 minutes. I've played more games than that, but they don't all last 10 minutes, so it should even out.

That's 20,000 minutes divided by 60 equals roughly 333 hours.

Let's say I did that over a year's time. That's $60 for XBL fees and we'll say $50 for Halo 2 (I actually bought it used at $30). Divide $110 by 333 hours for an amazing $0.33 an hour. You could even include the price of the Xbox @ $130 and I'm still at $0.72 an hour.

Final Fantasy 10 on the other hand took about 50 hours and was $50. That's three times as much at a dollar an hour. God of War was $50 and I played it for about 10 hours. That's over 15 times as much at 5 dollars an hour.

Interesting how people complain about money, isn't it? I wonder how the PS3 will factor in. We kind of need to know what they are going to do to extend replay value first.