The Fury said:
"If they don't support retail"? Why do retail need supporting, can they not stand on their own 2 feet? Are Walmart/Asda not making enough money? (I know Game are not but is that really because of digital retail?). You need a balance, I blame M$ for trying to force a digital future when we just are not there yet. XB Store and PS Store all last gen were highly overpriced for games. While pretty much all high street stores would compete in prices, one lowering it by a £1 here or there and over time games get cheaper and cheaper, Amazon price matching, supermarkets doing deals etc. While XB and PS stores held fast at the RRP, which I might add is £10 more than any other shop in the entire UK would sell a game for to begin with. Broken or not, Battlefield 4 for PS3 is currently £60 on PS Store. On a disc copy on Amazon.co.uk £27.99. This isn't keeping retailers happy, they should be competing for prices and customers. This is because digitally, PS Store doesn't have the same kind of competition as Game or Tesco do against Sainsburys and Amazon, they don't have to try and make their prices compete as there is no one to compete with in terms of digital distribution. If retailers want to survive, they need to earn it and it is not by crying at Sony or MS to fix prices so they can get decent sales, it's to adapt and change with the times, allowing more options of retail. Yes I blame M$ for the pricing, they control the store, not Game not gamers. I blame Game for their prices, I blame Shopto.net for their prices, it's up to the individual shop if they sell a game for £40 or £47 (GTAV original price, Asda vs HMV). We have no say in that, the complaints about M$ digital future wasn't the fact it was digital, but the fact it was restrictive. |
It isn't about supporting the retailers because they "want" too or because they have no digital competition, it is because they HAVE to. Both Sony and MS are reliant on retail to ship and sell consoles, in order for retailers to do that they have to see profit in it for them. both Sony and MS set a RRP, this price has to be at a level that allows retailers to make a good profit if they choose otherwise they aren't going to recommend or stock the system and corresponding games (and fair enough really they are businesses not charities). It also allows retailers to compete on price with other retailers with loss leaders or discount prices to get people into their stores.
If the online businesses sell at below RRP then they are immediately undermining the retail chain even if only by a small amount and this new price will become the defacto RRP. I hate the pricing of games at the moment and despise the digital pricing even more but both companies are in a hard position when it comes to digital pricing and I am not sure there is a "good" way for them to price them that won't have nasty consequences for them.
Perhaps they can sell cheaper but allow the retail chains to also sell digital codes for the games at the cheaper prices too. At the moment the retail chains are essential to their business and until they can completely kill disks off and remove the realiance on retail chain it is always going to be a fine line for them to walk.
