During the opening of Gamescom Halo Infinite was finally given a release date for its singleplayer and multiplayer segments, both out on 8th December. It also became available to pre-order, with Microsoft revealing the South African pricing.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the campaign for Halo Infinite is a full price $60 game and the multiplayer is free. Right now $60 converts to around R895.28. American pricing does not include tax so, for a fairer comparison, let’s us the South African 15 percent as a standard here.

With 15 percent on top of that Halo Infinite’s campaign costs R1 029.57 if you had to pay in Rands through an American store using our local tax. It’s not a perfect way to compare prices but does have some merit.

Now, for comparison, here is the actual localised pricing for the game in South Africa:

• PC – Steam – R999
• PC – Microsoft Store – R1 099
• Xbox (One / Series X|S) – Microsoft Store – R1 099

Looking at those prices it’s easy to think that South Africans are paying a fair price, which is hard to argue with since it’s a tiny sliver cheaper, but that’s not how regional pricing is supposed to work.

Regional pricing is supposed to adjust pricing not just to run it through a currency converter, but to offer prices that are in line with the economic state of a region. No one on Earth can argue thinks that South Africa and the USA are anyway comparable when it comes to economies, and yet local players in our third world country are again forced to pay first world prices for their content.

This isn’t a new problem and we discussed the exact same situation with Battlefield 2042 which is priced even higher.

The saving grace here is, of course, Xbox Game Pass. Halo Infinite is a first party Microsoft game which means that it will launch on day one for the games service.

Subscribers to Xbox Game Pass can play Halo Infinite from 8th December without any additional purchase necessary.

The regional pricing for the service is R99 per month so it seems like the infinitely (heh) better choice here. Even for those planning to play this game for more than a single month, the price of buying it outright can get you around ten months of subscriptions. During that time you can also play the hundreds of other games available on Xbox Game Pass too.