Why are Wii games so freakin' expensive??

[Dusk]

sc94597 said:

Dusk said:

It would only be artificial if it weren't factual. Only a certain amount of games are made, they are generally highly rated and wanted by many, so they are then collectables. How is that artificial? What happen in the market after a game is released has nothing to do with Nintendo, or any other company that makes games. The only difference is that they generally don't flood the market and they keep making quality games. Digital will have its impact on this though.

@Bolded What does that even mean? 

By artifical I meant Nintendo actively tries to keep the prices of their games up. They don't let the market decide prices naturally, they decide prices themselves, and they can do such because of the price inelasticity of demand on the end of retailers and consumers. This in turn affects the prices of the used market, because the new market is influenced by the price maker that is Nintendo. If the market were perfectly competitive then Nintendo would have no choice but to be a price taker. 

http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/economics-level-revision/business-economics-distribution-income/concentrated-markets/price-makers-price-takers

"Price Takers

• Firms in perfect competition are price takers
• All businesses have to accept the price that is set by the market
• Firms are not able to set their own price

Price Makers

• As pure monopolies rarely exist having one firm as a price maker is unlikely
• If firms are able to set prices in a market the extent to which they can is influenced by price elasticity for that market, the more inelastic the demand for a product the more a firm can set the price

It means what I said.

As I said before, they only create/print a certain allotment of games based on their projected demand for the game. They generally don't make more games than that. That is why there always ends up with demand for the games as opposed to the market being saturated. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the price of Xenoblade dropped dramatically when the 3DS version released. It's because the demand for the game lowered, however there are still those that want the original version for the Wii which is why it's still a relatively high price. If there wasn't demand for the game it would be much lower. That is why this often happen with games that are more rare.

What you posted refers to is initial price points, not the used market. The used, or rare market more reflects that to the likes of cars. A Delorian goes for more than when they were brand new, and the price keep rising because less are on the roads. Same goes for certain records and tapes (more so vinyl records though). However there has to be demand for it. Nintendo games, ie Zelda, Smash, Mario, Metroid, Xenoblade or any others all release at the same price point as other games on their system, or new games on other systems. If it were artificially inflated then any of the aformentioned games would release at higher MSRP, but they aren't.