If you’re planning on buying a PS3 at launch, chances are money isn’t a problem for you. So it won’t matter that now IGN is reporting that PS3 games may retail for around $75 - $85 USD. This is right in line with earlier comments from Kaz Hirai earlier, so you can’t exactly say they didn’t warn you. Still, it might be quite a shock to those of you out there that just barely scraped together the cash for a console.

The economics of the PS3 are not looking good right now - Sony has already agreed to take a loss on the console (which some analysts put at up to $300 / unit), so their main source of recouping money is by charging royalties for publishing titles on the console. But with game developers spending more and more to develop next-gen games, studios need to make a fair amount of money off of each title sold. Given that, Sony is quite reluctant to put too much financial pressure on studios and thereby alienate their already cash-strapped supporters. For Sony, this means either 1) not making any money or 2) raising the prices of games.

Update: Sony has clarified the pricing for PS3 games, stating that games will retail for up to $59.99 in the states, which is the same as titles for the Xbox 360. See the SonyStyle store here