Game Prices.

[iloveannie]

Does anybody else agree that games really are fairly good value once you know the right time and place to buy them? The major retailers admittedly sell new titles for quite a bit, but with places like Play.com (fantastic service all the time by the way) new titles can be bought much closer to ?30.

We also see titles that aren't 'big hitters' often selling for below ?30 (POP, Gregory HS, BGE, etc) and that's on the high street!

Take my recent purchase of OR2 for instance. ?20 new! Now that is good value for money if you ask me. Impulse purchase price for me that is.

Now I know that import titles can vary in their costs (take a look at my TNT VAT invoice for the DS bought from playasia two weeks ago) but this is purely about the good old UK pricing.

And as for the amount of titles that can be bought second hand...well that's something altogether different

[The Glider]

It's amazing how soon some game prices drop. I've now developed a strategy of only buying games when they're going for ?15 or less, unless it's a game I've been wanting for years, in which case I'll buy it on day of release. I find Gamestracker quite handy & have managed to save a huge amount of money using their site.

[RobN]

?30 is fine really. When you consider films on dvd are ?15 from Play.com. You know you'll get a hell of a lot more out of the average game than dvd. Plus if you don't have to buy a game when it's first released they can be bought for half that. Recently bought Galleon and Buronut 3 on the XBox for a very reasonable ?26 2nd hand. Not sure how long B3 has been out for but only 3 months or so. Or if you look at it the other way, once finished you can get half your money back.

[Leon Retro]

Everything is a major con, but it's nice to see the latest games available for ?23.99 from most retailers.

I can't see how retailers can go back to ?30-40 after xmas. I have a feeling that people will expect cheaper games, and I guess they are selling more.

Lets hope that things do stay below ?30.

[gossi the dog]

The sheer amont of discounting that goes on is worrying though. For instance Outrun 2 was selling for ?19.99 within 3 weeks of release. Surely with the scale of discounting more and more people will simply wait for a price drop, thus harming the industry's viability.

But yes games are at their cheapest levels since the tape based days.

[superstarbeejay]

The problem with the super fast price drops are that I never feel justified spending ?30 on a new game even if I think it's worth it. I know in a few months it'll be ?20. The sad thing is that I only got Halo 2 LE as I got ot for ?25 on release. If this hadn't been the case I would not have it yet and it's my most played new game this year.

I bought Disgaea new for ?30 as I thought if I didn't it'd be hard to get hold of. I saw 2 copies second hand for ?18 today. I really think ?20 is a fair price for a new release title. If it is a really big release then I will stretch to ?25.

This has also put paid to my GC. All of the games that I am after on GC are still ?30 everywhere. see MP2, paper mario, ToS. Hence I am buying XBOX and PS2 games instead. I picked up jet set radio future, dead or alive 3 and tetris worlds for ?10 a few days ago.

[baad bwoy]

Bluddy GBA games still seem generally to be too expensive

[ryodi]

So are GC games. I have no problem buying Paper Mario and Tales of Symphonia for ?30 each because they are not likely to come down in price anytime soon, the same with virtually all Nintendo GBA games. With PS2 titles I am a bit more picky and the play.com sale shows with Second Sight already under ?15 as well as many other titles released only a few months ago. I could not justify the ?35 I used to pay for GBA games originally or the ?45+ N64 titles used to cost me.

[EvilBoris]

its quite easy to spot games that are gonna drop quickly in price

first off they have to of been produced in huge quantities:
signs, lots of ads, point of sale, everywhere having it in stock

then it has to sell badly
it has to sell hardly any, if it gets into the charts then it won't drop for a long time.

The same applies for DVD's

I've given up buying them on release as they always end in in some offer with 2 months

[MartyG]

The sheer amont of discounting that goes on is worrying though. For instance Outrun 2 was selling for ?19.99 within 3 weeks of release. Surely with the scale of discounting more and more people will simply wait for a price drop, thus harming the industry's viability.

I'd say not. There are plenty of people around who must have the game at day of release, and plenty of people who can afford or don't care about paying full whack. Besides, it's the retailers who are doing most of the discounting and there is reasonable markup on games. The price they're paying from the suppliers doesn't change that much, ( there are "special deals" that go on, but it's all about promotions, quantities bought etc ), so there's really nothing to be concerned about, it's just good news for the consumer.

[chopemon]

i'll more than happily pay full price for a game on day of release

if it's something i want desperately (which is most stuff) i'll head into a store in town before work on the friday, otherwise i'll get it from play or ebay

it just depends on how much you want a game, i'm in a really fortunate position to not really have to worry about the price of a new game, if i want it i can get it fully in the knowledge that in 3 weeks it will be half price

[Leon Retro]

The only games I must have on release are Live titles.

If you hold-back a few weeks with these games, everyone else whips your arse!

[Duddyroar]

Agreed, I think games prices are pretty much bang on at the moment. I can recall the dark days of the Megadrive and SNES when the average price for a game was ?44.99 - and prices didn't drop within months like they do now. These days you can get new titles for under ?20 only a couple of weeks after release. For example, Blockbuster are doing KOF 00/01 and Metal Slug 3 in a two for ?20 offer - the games have only been out for a few months. The low cost of CD-ROM/DVD-ROM production obviously helps.

There's really never been a better time to be a gamer when it comes to prices.

[Zapp$ter]

Bluddy GBA games still seem generally to be too expensive

someone on gamesradar posted a link to gbastore.com after having successfully recieved there own copy of ALttP that they ordered from the same site. I've had a look and the prices are fairly decent, just as a test I put in all the games I'm looking to get for the GBA: Wario Ware, Advance Wars 1 and 2, Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis and Mario & Luigi: Superstar saga. In total it came to about ?53 including shipping costs as well. I've never used them before or even heard of them so I'm not sure how good they are.

[phresh]

There was an article in a recent MVC/Develop issue (can't remember which) written by some industry guy moaning that UK prices are too low and publishers/developers are losing money. This actually made me angry as the games/prices he was referring to were available for much less abroad. The UK gets ripped off again.....