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Forums - Gaming - Can somebody breakdown the $60 price tag for a game and explain why in most cases physical copies are the same price as digital ones?

Goatseye said:
Cobretti2 said:
Goatseye said:
Cobretti2 said:
think of t this way,what has happened to book stores when digital copies become significantly cheaper?

i bet retailers demanded parity prices or wont stock.


I have problem with that if it really happens. If that is not price fixing Maddoff is innocent.

 

I look at it differently. I would call it retailers protecting their businesses.  

Also think about it if MIcrosoft, Sony and Nintendo lower the price and suddenly retailers stop stocking their games then sales decrease. They are all waiting for everyone to have decent internet before they go fully digital and no need to rely on retailers.

That doesn't change anything though. What about protecting customers and give them the best deals?


considering both are 60 you are getting the best deal. Now you got two choices, physical or digital.



 

 

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Vinniegambini said:
kappie1977 said:
I really think this has got to do with the retailers as the digital versions are eating away their turnover. I don't see many friends buy retail versions anymore for PS vita games as they are slightly cheaper digitally (when they first release) and the effect is, that it's now days even hard to find some games at retailers. So I can imagine that if this happens in the same way with PS3/XBOX360 games the game stores will be empty very rapidly.

But with this I come to another questions: Why do we see lower priced XBOX360/PS3 games at retailers, but Nintendo games don't get any price reductions.

Nintendo are the only publishers-distributors to not offer price protection to retailers. Consequently, you never see Nintendo games go down in price and retailers only order limited copies of ''Nintendo'' games in order to limit their loses if ever the game bombs and to not have an excess of inventories.

ah that explains it. thnx



Everybody should read the article that I posted below. MS, Apple and Adobe are questioned about their product pricing in Australia. 

I wish us, the consumers, were more organized to fight against corporate fascism. Tell me what you think below:

Not good enough: Big Tech answers to Parliament fall short

Major companies, including Apple and Microsoft, failed to explain their high local prices at last week’s parliamentary inquiry into IT pricing. Consumers should demand more.

Not good enough: that’s the message the technology sector has delivered to its giant competitors like Apple and Microsoft after last week’s parliamentary inquiry into pricing in the IT sector didn’t reveal any sufficient explanations as to why local consumers pay so much.

The organisation which helped push for the inquiry in the first place, Choice, says the companies involved didn’t offer appropriate explanations and, in some cases, gave “bizarre” alternatives.

Adobe gave some bizarre comments around the personalised nature of its website, and how that somehow justified charging people $1200 more for its Creative Suite,” spokesperson Matt Levey said.

Levey says while the pressure placed on these companies by having to appear at the inquiry is a positive outcome, Choice wants to see a recommendation on geoblocking — a tool used by companies to prevent local users from accessing prices used in other countries. “We think there’s a strong case for that to be looked at, and we’d like to see some strong recommendations there,” he said.

Three major companies appeared before the inquiry — Microsoft, Adobe and, in a rare appearance, Apple. Apple local managing director Tony King, who is seldom seen in public, shifted much of the blame from the company onto the local rights holders. As a result, he told the inquiry, local users pay more for iTunes content than in other countries:

Apple must pay the rights holders to distribute content in each of the territories in which the iTunes store exist. The retail pricing of digital content is based on many factors and foreign exchange is not a major factor. The main differentiator is the wholesale price.”

Apple has faced scrutiny in the past due to the price disconnect between countries. Users in Australia often pay much higher prices for music than customers in the United States. Levey says the argument carries some weight, but he likened Apple’s market power to the same kind used by Woolworths and Coles to reduce the price of milk.

Microsoft took a much more defensive stance, with local head Pip Marlow saying the current prices were set and if customers were unhappy they could shop elsewhere. “If they don’t like it, they vote with their wallets,” she said, adding there isn’t a “silver bullet” for addressing pricing issues.

Adobe took an aggressive approach, suggesting customers could even fly to the United States and purchase products if the end result was cheaper. Local managing director Paul Robson told the inquiry the company’s policy of geoblocking, in which customers are directed to the local store and cannot access lower prices in other countries, is completely valid.

The personalisation is relevant to the experience you get when online. One of our key interactions is to allow [buyers] to talk among themselves and ask them to contribute to the future of our product,” he said.

Levey says the inquiry provided “three different approaches but no real explanation”.

Source: http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/03/25/not-good-enough-big-tech-answers-to-parliament-fall-short/