PlayStation Meeting 2013

[Herr Matzat]

Is it only 5$ though? Unless you buy a game with many houres of play/replay value to you or a multiplayer that wins you over big time you can finish most games fairly fast and resell them for 20-40€ easily.

[Cactus Drags]

From the sounds of it Matz, the yanks get properly stiffed on trade prices. Possibly not to that extent, but I've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest some places aren't very fair with their trade offers.

[thatshortguy]

Indeed. Ten years ago, it'd be fairly common to get $40 trade on something that sold for $60 new (you'd have to go to a non-Gamestop shop, like Rhino or Blockbuster). Now, you're lucky if you get $30 back on a game that sells for $60 new.

[apsham]

The only place we really have to trade around here is EB Games, and it's not bad if you know how to work the system. It seems to have gotten a little bit worse recently - new games tend to go down a bit faster than they used to but I've made it my policy recently to basically play and beat something I don't intend on keeping.

[Dan]

PS4 E3 Reveal video apparently (possibly be fake)

[Bobfoc]

It's fake, but well put together nevertheless.

[KevinStorm]

Digital copies SHOULD be cheaper, if only because they don't have to go through a store to get the game to you.

Or they could just keep charging the same price and pocket the extra profit.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

Pretty much. But I've said before they could kill resales by offering a discount by just a few dollars.

What's it worth to them?

[Bobfoc]

You could argue that Valve could have charged hugely inflated prices through Steam and "pocket the extra profit", but they haven't. Since launching the service, Valve is now an exceptionally wealthy company, and Gabe Newell has said many times that their regular discount sales end up being vastly more profitable than any other time of the year for the majority of developers. I'm quite sure Sony could still make a sizeable profit on each game sale if their digital prices were lower, and they'd quite possibly end up making considerably more money if they managed to cultivate a digital distribution platform renowned for offering games at affordable prices.

At the moment, Sony allows major publishers to regulate their own PSN prices, which is probably why the likes of Dead Space 3 and FIFA 13 cost £59.99 when they were first released. I'd be baffled that anyone would pay that much for a game they could pick up for around £20 less at a high street shop or through an online retailer.

[TCO]

FIFA 13 was 69.99 to pre-order on the Euro PSN, I got it 15 cheaper without even hunting out the best bargain. It's all well and good not giving discounts, but charging more for digital media is ridiculous.

[TKz]

FIFA 13 was 69.99 to pre-order on the Euro PSN, I got it 15 cheaper without even hunting out the best bargain. It's all well and good not giving discounts, but charging more for digital media is ridiculous.

They don't have a choice. Until digital media is at the same level as retail, they're at the mercy of stores like GAME, which only have to say "If you sell X game for the same price as us online, we won't sell your game." to stop them. It's too much of a gamble to risk pissing off retailers. As such, they generally sell the games at the price they should be sold, rather than at the same rate or less.

It's why PC games are so much cheaper, there's no cost for production and disk creation and so on... and they still probably make more money from it.

[Cactus Drags]

FIFA 13 was 69.99 to pre-order on the Euro PSN, I got it 15 cheaper without even hunting out the best bargain. It's all well and good not giving discounts, but charging more for digital media is ridiculous.

They don't have a choice. Until digital media is at the same level as retail, they're at the mercy of stores like GAME, which only have to say "If you sell X game for the same price as us online, we won't sell your game." to stop them. It's too much of a gamble to risk pissing off retailers. As such, they generally sell the games at the price they should be sold, rather than at the same rate or less.

It's why PC games are so much cheaper, there's no cost for production and disk creation and so on... and they still probably make more money from it.

Yeah right. Game can barely afford to buy stock these days, there's no power to wield over publishers.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

I'm pretty sure they can watch GAME by stock then undercut the price as a big fuck you.

Being beholden to a company that's reselling over selling initial products? With a more and more digital age that's coming to an end. they just have to convince others thats the case.

[Colly]

While you're right that digital delivery will be everything eventually, it isn't now. If GAME (as well as Tesco etc) suddenly decided to stop selling PlayStation games there'd be an awful lot of X-Box's sold.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Colly

[EWB's Best Poster.]

I agree its still a ways off. But only due to rural areas lacking dependable WiFi speeds. Fact is getting rid of resales is something all the big three want desperately. So I agree to the first part but not as much to the second.