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After purchasing my X-Box three weeks a go I am left at this current time with no games to play on and out of the few pounds I had after renting 3 games and borrowing off my friends, but why do games cost so much? Everyone needs to earn a living and what ever trade you are in what ever you sell is always sold for a profit, but in some cases known as 'Rip offs' how much of a profit do some companies make?
As Microsoft have shown, games cost very little to design and produce and as many of us know, money is not made on the console itself it’s the games that brings in the cash. With Microsoft’s reward pack people who bought the console before April 19th would receive 2 free games of their choice and an extra pad. The free games available could be selected from a very limited list that included only Microsoft produced games and that only. When my friend rang them to ask, 'why can't I have the money and buy some other Microsoft products in my local store', they simply replied, 'if we did this we would lose £80 on every reward package sent out', this means that to send this special pack out it in fact only costs them £20 which in stores we would have to pay £110 to get exactly the same things, we are being ripped off!
Sony have introduced the Platinum range which is good for gamers who do not receive a lot of money in which to utilize their spends on. At £20 the companies must still be making a profit otherwise they would be working at a loss, so why do we pay double this for exactly the same product? This question can only be answered in a single word 'GREED', greed on the part of companies like Microsoft and Sony which makes them the companies they are today.
Although not a big Nintendo fan I think what they have done with the GameCube can only be described as a marketing genius, the amount of people I know who are getting a GameCube due to the incredible price of £130 beats both Microsoft and Sony to a pulp! With the profits made on the games they sell isn't it about time we did something about this and challenged them for the public fraud in which they deal to us every time we open our wallets to buy a game. Challenging these companies in ones and twos does not apply any pressure to them at all but maybe a few thousand pointing this out and giving them no ultimatum they might finally listen to us.
Special Reserve and other internet companies do their best to bring us the games at a cheaper price and there is nothing more they can do, it is the companies like Microsoft and Sony that need to market their products at a more affordable price that benefits them as well as us.
One big problem with the Microsoft X-Box on launch was the price! People were not prepared to pay £350 for a console and this is shown in the sales figures which have shot up world-wide since the price drop last week. We are taken as 'Mugs' in a game where only one and one only wins, we benefit in enjoyment but only a little compared to how much people like 'Bill Gates' are benefiting from their profits.
I am a gaming fanatic but at 15 years of age I struggle to get the money together to go out and purchase the games I want, every week a new game comes out that I would love to own but I mainly rely on Birthday and Christmas to pull in the 6 games a year in which I buy.
I am not saying, 'give games away', just lower the prices so more people will go out and buy them more frequently, if the prices were lowered more games would be sold so they would still be working at a very high gain in profits but they would not be taking us gamers for granted any longer! Gaming is a 'Mugs Game' and I am afraid to say, we are the mugs!
Still sat without any games for my X-Box I wonder why they do this to us, but the answer is staring at me blatantly in the face, greed and pure greed is the only answer to this solution and while ever man walks the earth, greed will plague it with him!
After purchasing my X-Box three weeks a go I am left at this current time with no games to play on and out of the few pounds I had after renting 3 games and borrowing off my friends, but why do games cost so much? Everyone needs to earn a living and what ever trade you are in what ever you sell is always sold for a profit, but in some cases known as 'Rip offs' how much of a profit do some companies make?
As Microsoft have shown, games cost very little to design and produce and as many of us know, money is not made on the console itself it’s the games that brings in the cash. With Microsoft’s reward pack people who bought the console before April 19th would receive 2 free games of their choice and an extra pad. The free games available could be selected from a very limited list that included only Microsoft produced games and that only. When my friend rang them to ask, 'why can't I have the money and buy some other Microsoft products in my local store', they simply replied, 'if we did this we would lose £80 on every reward package sent out', this means that to send this special pack out it in fact only costs them £20 which in stores we would have to pay £110 to get exactly the same things, we are being ripped off!
Sony have introduced the Platinum range which is good for gamers who do not receive a lot of money in which to utilize their spends on. At £20 the companies must still be making a profit otherwise they would be working at a loss, so why do we pay double this for exactly the same product? This question can only be answered in a single word 'GREED', greed on the part of companies like Microsoft and Sony which makes them the companies they are today.
Although not a big Nintendo fan I think what they have done with the GameCube can only be described as a marketing genius, the amount of people I know who are getting a GameCube due to the incredible price of £130 beats both Microsoft and Sony to a pulp! With the profits made on the games they sell isn't it about time we did something about this and challenged them for the public fraud in which they deal to us every time we open our wallets to buy a game. Challenging these companies in ones and twos does not apply any pressure to them at all but maybe a few thousand pointing this out and giving them no ultimatum they might finally listen to us.
Special Reserve and other internet companies do their best to bring us the games at a cheaper price and there is nothing more they can do, it is the companies like Microsoft and Sony that need to market their products at a more affordable price that benefits them as well as us.
One big problem with the Microsoft X-Box on launch was the price! People were not prepared to pay £350 for a console and this is shown in the sales figures which have shot up world-wide since the price drop last week. We are taken as 'Mugs' in a game where only one and one only wins, we benefit in enjoyment but only a little compared to how much people like 'Bill Gates' are benefiting from their profits.
I am a gaming fanatic but at 15 years of age I struggle to get the money together to go out and purchase the games I want, every week a new game comes out that I would love to own but I mainly rely on Birthday and Christmas to pull in the 6 games a year in which I buy.
I am not saying, 'give games away', just lower the prices so more people will go out and buy them more frequently, if the prices were lowered more games would be sold so they would still be working at a very high gain in profits but they would not be taking us gamers for granted any longer! Gaming is a 'Mugs Game' and I am afraid to say, we are the mugs!
Still sat without any games for my X-Box I wonder why they do this to us, but the answer is staring at me blatantly in the face, greed and pure greed is the only answer to this solution and while ever man walks the earth, greed will plague it with him!
Although it apparently only costs Sony £40 to make a PS2 but we pay £200 for it (although im sure fees are added on like import etc)
Still, life goes on yet gamers still pay out
Its a big boys toy...
It was stupid time of the year to be releasing a £300 console though...
> But just think, they would make even more of a profit if they lowered
> the prices becuase more people would in-turn by their product, it is a
> cycle that is yet to be broken but like the GameCube is showing, you
> lower it and we will buy it.
Yea, then companys will say the higher prices are because of losses due to Piracy. Blah blah....
> You also have to take into account how much money Microsoft have spent
> on Marketing. It was close to Half a billion wernt it? Even with games
> at £45 they dont expect a profit on the console till 2005+
Half a million it was and by 2005 they could have fluffed out so they must be making profits by then, a lot of this talk is to stop people from complaining about the prices, they will already be making a huge profit on us.
Thats really hard to believe considering Ninty spent €100 Million on marketing in Europe.