Yesterday JimboNZ commented in the Button Masher forums that local prices are far too high in comparison to what you can get online, in particular, Play Asia. This reminded me of an article I read a few days ago, where an Australian gamer did a little bit of his own research, providing readers with a comprehensive report on game pricing.
When gamers can routinely import games at significantly cheaper prices across all formats, there is something seriously wrong.
James “DexX” Dominguez compared the price of leading games at Australian retail outlets compared to online stores both locally and overseas. The three retail outlets consisted of EB Games, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman and Dungeon Crawl. The local online stores were of little interest to me, but the overseas online retailers included Play Asia, Yes Asia and Super UFO.
The results were a little predictable with a few surprises thrown in for good measure. For starters, Australians (and no doubt New Zealanders) are getting shafted when it comes to game prices. On average, PS3 games were AU $36.24 cheaper on overseas online stores than what you could find them for locally. Ditto with 360 games (AU $30.14), Wii games (AU $31.17), DS games (AU $21.11) and PSP games (AU $9.65). The big surprises for me were that controllers were also significantly cheaper from overseas online stores (AU $18.51) and local online stores were generally the most expensive choice for your video game purchases. These results have really opened my eyes to the huge price differences we pay locally and I will definitely be reconsidering my purchase options in the future.
The full report can be found here at Screen Play. See past the break for a chart view.
Tags: Games
Not only are prices for boxed games too high, digital distribution stings kiwis too, at least on PSN (Playstation Network), if I was to buy Elefunk from the ‘NZ’ PSN store it costs NZD$15.50, vs the US price of USD$4.99 (NZD$6.44).
Of course, as a savvy PS3 user, i’ll just load up my US user account, load it with funds using entropay, and download that sucker at the more reasonable price.
I am personally happy to see that gamers are becoming more aware about the pricing situation in nz, hopefully with the support of all nz gamers we will stablish the first and biggest affordable gaming experience for all NZ gamers. props for the story. stan – First Games.
Two valid points boys. Thanks for your input.
I ain’t never buy games from retail outlets any more. In fact, I haven’t for years.
The reason? I don’t like being forcibly rooted from behind by the prices.