Why are Wii games so expensive?

Icarian

take price of persia, basically a port of a 2 year old ps2 game (which now goes for E20... so how come its E60-70 now?

as for Wii games in general, i thought the Wii would be just as cheap to develop for as other last gen consoles, the new Splinter Cell goes for E50 ON PS2, and the Wii version is just a port so god knows why the extra E10

just a year ago the average game price was E45-50, and now it seems like even ps2 games have gone up in price with FFX retailing for E60, and God of War 2 also

is there any reason for this jack up in price or are they just taking horrible advantage?

o1s1n

Its simply new releases coupled with high demand. The stores know people want the games and will pay so they charge those prices.

aob

There does seem to be a current trend for retail game stores in the UK and Ireland to take advantage and jack up prices for their own gain rather than compete with eachother's prices like they did years ago, maybe it's justified, I'm sure someone much smarter than me knows

All I know is I went into my local gamestop a few weeks to pick up a DS game rather than buy online like I've been doing the past few years, they tried to charge me €60...for a DS game...I mean what the hell...a DS game...

There's obviously people happily paying current prices, but I'm fine sticking to getting my games online at the cost of having to wait a few extra days.

thebman

Yeah the problem is Irish and British consumers are thick as posts and won't shop around, combine that will a silent agreement to jack up prices by retailers because they can and you have all games costing around 60-75 euro or so. Hurray for stupidity!

However it should be noted that kids don't have credit cards and have to buy at rip off prices unless their parents buy online for them.

A real solution would be to stop price fixing. If all retailers mysteriously set the exact same price which is about 15 euro above cost then that is price fixing.

Icarian

excuse my ignorance, but is price fixing illegal?

And E60 for a DS game?
what game was that?

the highest i've seen is E55 for Phoenix Wright 2 which goes for U.S $30 (or about E24...

this is ridiculous...
no more shopping in Ireland high street shops for me anyway...

thank god the DS is region free!

Gonzo_Reporter

Saw one of the two flight sim games for €70 in HMV. I felt sick, but games (excuding PS3 games) have always on average been €50-60. PC games always come down faster in price than console in my experience. Mind you the new TMNT is already half price in Game Dawson St.
The internet is the way to go, if you can wait those few weeks.

christophicus

GC games as far as Im aware were quite frequently between €50-60.

1huge1

Nothing was as bad as the old days of paying £60 for N64 games
I've basically given up on buying games in shops when I can get it off the likes of cdwow for so much cheaper

BlitzKrieg

There does seem to be a current trend for retail game stores in the UK and Ireland to take advantage and jack up prices for their own gain rather than compete with eachother's prices like they did years ago, maybe it's justified, I'm sure someone much smarter than me knows

I think it has something to do with trade ins. All game stores make their money off 2nd hand games rather then new games. So keeping the price up creates an exchange where most people would trade 2-3 old games to get the new game at a reasonable price, then the gamestore would sell on those 2nd hand game for an insane amount of profit, and most likely that new game will make its way back again in a couple of weeks/months.

there's no need for the shops to compete on a pricing level, instead they compete in trade in deals etc (like the recent 360 for 200 euros if you trade in 1 console and 4 games at gamestop)