It appears that the prices of some digital Xbox One games have taken a bit of a leap up over the weekend, without any sort of explanation as to why.
Titles that were available for preorder on Friday for £44.99 - Halo 5: Guardians and Rise of the Tomb Raider most noticeably - are now at the £49.99 mark.
In a world where the £44.99 pricepoint already had the digital version weighing in at £5.92 more expensive than the converted US price and where pricing is listed as the main reason that people won't switch to digital, this is hardly what's needed. This means that it now costs 20% less to purchase a physical copy of a game when compared to the digital version, even via one of the traditionally most expensive UK retailers, GAME. That's no attack on them at all. They just usually stick to the RRP when it comes to pricing new games.
They'll let you preorder Rise of the Tomb Raider for £39.99 and that comes with the equivalent of £3.20 of in-store reward points and the ability to trade the game in down the road.
It isn't all that hard to see why people aren't all that eager to switch, given that things like this are going on. It also creates a bit of a rift in the space-time continuum, given that you can still purchase the downloadable version of Halo 5: Guardians from GAME for £44.99, whereas buying it direct from the Xbox Store will cost £49.99.
Bizarre.
Comments 10
Still cheaper for me, game sharing ftw i guess for that reason is why it is more expensive.
What a backward step! I'll buy disc-based until digital is FAR cheaper.
Unfortunately, that's why most people were anti towards a solely digital solution, no competition. Most people will vote with their feet I expect. Back to disc for me for a while.
Wonder why they've gone up? Hopefully it's an error... otherwise as an almost completely digital gamer I think this sucks big time... hope it's not just to rake in some extra money over the holiday period!!!
If Microsoft and Sony are really serious about digital then they are going to have face facts. Buying a digital copy of a game at the same or more than a physical copy is just stupid. I have no problem buying a digital copy but they have to face facts and factor in a discount that counteracts my ability to trade the game in for anything between £10 to £20. Otherwise I'm just going to wait till it is free on Games for Gold or EA Vault, buy a heavily discounted copy from Amazon a few months down the line or pick it up digitally when they offer it for £20. Or they could offer it too me digitally for £35 from the off and we'd all be happy.
It's bad enough that new digital releases cost £44.99-£54.99 when we could buy the same games from Amazon for around £40 but then MS go even further screwing with us by raising the price of digital games. By selling games digitally it saves money from having to make the discs, cases and shipping costs, so really it should be cheaper to buy digitally but then there's the whole thing about keeping the retailers happy otherwise hardly anyone would buy from them if digital games were cheaper.
It wasn't long ago that the standard Fallout 4 pre-order went up to £59.99 but soon after went back down to £54.99, it was either an error or MS knew fine well what they were doing. I wasn't happy when I realised Halo 5 went up to £49.99 when for weeks it was £44.99 but thanks Ken for mentioning that GAME sell the pre-order code for £44.99 I shall get it from them sometime this week.
I have said it till I am blue in the face & this the #1 example why.......
I will never go all digital because it makes absoutely ZERO sense. None. Zippo. This is completely ridiculous.
Indeed, this is kind of bizarre.
As someone from the UK, this should effect me... but as I never buy a game I can get in a physical form through digital means, this has absolutely no effect on me. I much prefer having physical copies, and downloading large games takes up way too much space (particularly when there are digital only games that also catch my interest). Still, I can understand how this will be frustrating for those who do prefer to buy their games digitally.
There's both pros and cons of buying games digitally, I only buy digital games if I intend on keeping it for good because keeping hold of a physical copy for a long time reduces the trade-in price dramatically. So it would therefore make sense buying it digitally so there is zero chance of any problems with the game in the future like the disc being damaged or lost but then there's the cons of digital games being more expensive.
On the third-party side, the Fallout 4 pre-order price went down from £59.99 to £54.99. Maybe it's something to do with third parties not being happy about MS undercutting them by £10 all the time?
Because of the terrible overcharging on digital, Fallout 4 is only the second game I've pre-ordered on the Xbox Store this year, Mortal Kombat X being the first. I like the convenience of not having a disc but I won't pay up to £15 more than online retailers for the privilege.
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