Viper1 said:
That's the consignment agreement I was talking about before. That's rarely used except in some European markets in desperation mode. HMV did it for a little while when they were in administration. But this is not used as standard practice. Much less widescale. And I've also never heard of a distributor paying money back to a retailer for a percentage of product that was reduced in price by the retailer themselves. |
It most likely is though. I can only really speak about Square Enix games since I looked into their financial statements, but the reason Hitman, Tomb Raider, and Deus Ex wasn't profitable was because of that retailer insurance. I don't see why other publishers don't make those deals with retailers, it lets them stuff channels. I actually see games hit the bargain bin way faster now than they did back in the PSX/N64 days. Back then a game stayed full pirce until it became a greatest hit and if it didn't, it just got discontinued. From what I know Nintendo doesn't do that which is why their games stay full price until they cut the price themselves.