Xbox One Titanfall Bundle £349.99!!!

[starcraft]

drkohler said:

starcraft said:

drkohler said:

I actually KNOW what the store margins are in several European countries. It is NOWHERE what you write here. And are you really suggesting that Respawn/EA would simply look aside when MS gives away for free THEIR game? What a strange idea..

What are they then? My understanding is that they are and have always been extremely slim, with margins made up on software.

And no, I am not suggesting that at all.  But I think it likely that deals were sorted out between EA and MS on the Titanfall issue long before the console launched...

Of course store margins are confidential and I know people who have been severly disciplined for talking about it, so you are never going to see me quote numbers (although you can google-find general numbers for consumer goods of the same "size"). And it is highly doubtful MS and EA made any deals for freebies for a key software barely after its release. Such deals are very common once the software goes into its "second life" (basically when the publisher has made enough money so that he doesn't want to be bothered any more with the whole manufacturing/distribution chain. Then we actually talk about dimes or dollars at most. There are companies who live entirely from this, "Green Pepper" in Germany for example).

We're on a forum behind pseudonyms mate, I am sure you can share if you wish too.

The deal between MS and EA has been the source of speculation for some time.  It has always been intended as a tentpole release for Microsoft, speculation on these forum have had them paying millions for exclusivity!  In that sense I am sure there was a cost, but applying it individually to unit costs is difficult, even if we were privy to the details.

The second life you refer too is common - but situations like this (with a major third party exclusive where money has clearly changed hands in advance) are different.