| The Fury said: Fair enough, no proof given, therefore what I say is bullcrap. However I struggle to understand how games put into disc based retail that sells 500k new (tracked) copies (a) doesn't make a profit (b) of those 500k, how the lose of maybe 5k extra used game sales will make a difference in these overall profits. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/less-than-half-of-gamestops-customers-know-they-ca/1100-6421309/ This article says Gamestop used games sales counts as $1.2 billion in revenue, their overall revenue according to 2009 wiki is over $9 billion. And they are one of few modern outlets that do used games sales (most online stores don't). I understand your other points. Sure there are ways around the loss of income by opening up new revenue angles but used games should be included in that, as for many people it's how they buy, exchange and play games contantly instead of buying one games and that's it. If they don't want people to buy used and want then to buy digital then they have to make the prices competitive instead of just expensive. Oh and just so you know: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/5901188/cd-album-sales-fall-behind-album-downloads-is-2014-the Don't expect disc based games to become a niche market any times soon if even music digital sales are only just outpacing CD sales. |
I agree, the digital versions of games SHOULD be atleast 20% less expensive than their retail version. That day may come, but not until retail dumps game sales altogether. To get retail to keep the games on the shelves, there can't be such a major difference in the prices between the two. The bad part is, that when this happens, they won't bother to pass on the discount to us end users, as we will be used to the prices by then. Also, PSN/XBL type interfaces will just absorb the retail profits.
Just an added thought to the Music sales link. The comparison is kind of iffy, as they are talking about WHOLE album sales. Most music isn't purchased in whole albums anymore. Even in the article, they state that digital sales exceed hard copy sales in 2011. Even knowing that, I am a little surprised that album sales are still chugging along on CD. I just thought back to the last few full albums that me or my wife purchased and 4 of the 6 were on CD. Of course, that took 2 years or so to accomplish. Just this year, both of my cars are now bluetooth(used to be just mine) capable. So, my wife now agrees that she will buy music digital only. It will take a while longer, but the reason to even have a cd player is going away. Just like a number of people that I know that don't even have a DVD/Bluray player anymore. As things break or whatever, people might not even replace them.
It is near the end of the end....
