New games drop price by 60% after eight months

24 Comments by Kevin Kelly Jul 9th 2007 1:00PM
Filed under: Culture, Business

Used Video Game Pricing is a somewhat sporadically published blog that tracks game prices and follows how they change over time. Hey, at least someone is doing the work out there so we don't have to. They have an interesting article up detailing how the price of games released in the last two years tend to drop in price (not value ... you can pry Halo 2 from our cold, blistered fingers) by 60%.

Which is a bit of bad news for those of you waiting on price drops for all of the upcoming titles that will be blasting us until the end of the year. Who can wait eight months? Although if you manage to wait that long, you can pick up two for less than the price of one. Interestingly enough, games that were released more than two years ago only drop in price by 20%, meaning that your copy of Whacked! might still actually hold some value, both monetarily and sentimentally.

Tags: prices, pricing, used video games, UsedVideoGames

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Alex: Jul 9th 2007; 1:10PM

I could've told you that; for as long as anybody can remember, video games have basically had two price points: $50 and $20. It's silly as all get out, but there you go.

Nushio: Jul 9th 2007; 1:11PM

Sometimes its best not to wait. I kept on waiting for a Price Drop on Battalion Wars for Gamecube, and the only thing that dropped was the game from the shelves...

Now I can't find it at any store, and don't like to buy online.

Fernando Rocker: Jul 9th 2007; 1:24PM

I bought two weeks ago Battalion Wars and Geist (this game sucks) for $9.99, new, in my local Gamestop... visit the webpage, they have Battalion Wars on the online store.

vidGuy: Jul 9th 2007; 1:15PM

Except now the pricepoints are $60 and $30. And $50, and $70, and $99, depending upon platform and edition. But $60 and $30 are the new staple prices.

I play this game every year, can I hold off long enough to save some coin? For most games, the answer is no. But I got smart and instead of buying Madden, Tiger Woods, and all my other sports games each year at $50-$60, I buy them a few months before the new edition comes out and get them at $20-$30. So I won't be buying Madden 08 until probably March of 2008, when the season is already over. But it doesn't really bother me.

Patrick: Jul 9th 2007; 1:26PM

Im glad I dont like the sports simulation games because it saves me $300 a year. Especially this year, I mean I say it every year, but it think 2007 will be the year of gaming

J.G.F.: Jul 9th 2007; 6:46PM

I buy Madden when it comes out, but only every other year.

matt: Jul 9th 2007; 1:20PM

I love "News Games"! And they seriously do drop in price after 8 months... I picked up "Super Larry King Smackdown" for only 20 bucks, and I'm waiting for "George Stephanopoulooza" to drop down a bit more before I pick that one up.

therpham: Jul 9th 2007; 1:24PM

Speaking of news games, I can't wait for NBC's new Extreme Peacock Adventure Story.

el tonot: Jul 9th 2007; 1:24PM

Plus I noticed in the last gen that PS2 games drop in price at a faster rate than Xbox. For example, AAA games on PS2 like RE4, Rachet games, etc all drop to $20 bucks within 9-12 months. However, on Xbox games like Halo, Project Gotham, etc. all take as long as 18 months before the first price drop. The same is happening with PS3 and 360 games all ready.

Intentless: Jul 9th 2007; 1:28PM

If people keep buying the game at the higher price it will keep selling at the higher price.... Thats why sonys games dropped quicker than xboxes... for the most part...

Noshino: Jul 9th 2007; 1:39PM

well, or you can see it this way, "sony" games sell more and thus to sell even more they drop the price, so people will be even more interested, and the ones that at first weren't, will then be interested in a good (or not so good) game for a low price

makes sense doesn't it?

Intentless: Jul 9th 2007; 2:00PM

It would make sense if Sony wasn't out to make money... There are two ways. If they are selling fast enough they hit a certain mark and then they are dropped or sales drop in momentum and they drop the price. If the momentum is still high enough they keep it at orginal or have marginal price drops... There were plenty of PS2 games that didn't drop in price for a long time. Just like the few hits from xbox that didn't.

Patrick: Jul 9th 2007; 1:29PM

rofl, didnt catch the headline

Kevin Kelly: Jul 9th 2007; 1:30PM

Hey, don't count out the Anderson Cooper game from CNN. It'll rock you like a hurricane. Ouch.

Fixed the headline typo, consarnit.

penas: Jul 9th 2007; 1:34PM

and the cow goes moo.

el tonot: Jul 9th 2007; 1:36PM

I want to play with that Red-headed chick from CNN . I think Phillips is her name. That would get my Wiimote going :)

Jonathan Tran: Jul 9th 2007; 1:52PM

I don't rush to buy any game that isn't online multiplayer. What is the point? I bought every A++ Dreamcast and GCN game off ebay for about $1-10 each, and they are stil awesome. It's not like Splinter Cell 3 where you wait, and by the time you play online there are either no games or everyone else is a pro.

With the exception of some Saturn games and the rarest imports, games are not an investment and should not be treated as one. Buy it CHEAP.

t_m: Jul 9th 2007; 1:54PM

I tend to buy all my games 6-8 months after release. I rarely pay more than $10-$15 for a game.

Plus it has the added bonus that graphics cards tend to drop by 60-70% in price in about 6 months (which is a saving of several hundred dollars a year) and you get to be more selective, as the initial hype has had time to die down and you can buy the games that are truly worth buying.

Evan: Jul 9th 2007; 2:06PM

It's simple: game prices are dropping because it's the end of the PS2's lifecycle! The big spenders are moving onto the new consoles, leaving PS2 sales to more budget minded consumers who are quite happy to buy a 2-year old "greatest hits" game over an 8-month old title. That leaves 8-month old PS2 games competing on price with 2-year old games.

8-month old Wii and PS3 games have retained their value. It's all in the PS2.

Kevin Kelly: Jul 9th 2007; 3:41PM

I hate to break it to you, but I didn't make that graph. Follow the story to the original and enjoy.

vgxtremist: Jul 9th 2007; 3:51PM

The only time to get games immediately is if its something rare, like KOFXI and GGXXAC that are coming out this fall.

Now lets think, when did God of War II come out again? Wonder when it will drop.

Mr Khan: Jul 9th 2007; 4:16PM

God of War II was March, i think

Of course, it does work on a console-to-console basis, as well as taking title popularity into account

But the means for consoles is a little different, the price to buy one will steadily go down until the console's about 10 years out of production, then the price will shoot right back up (see Sega Saturn)

James: Jul 9th 2007; 4:56PM

I keep telling myself that I should just wait, and put the new games I want on a list, and watch for the price to drop. I walk into the game store and I can always find something I'd love to play for about 20 bucks or less -- my game time is more than filled up. But somehow, some games just grab my attention and my will breaks... I'm sure I'll be buying Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3 on their respective launch days. Probably also true of Metroid Prime 3 and a few other hot items.

Man, that "buy later" list is getting *long*, though.

why not the LS2LS7?: Jul 9th 2007; 5:05PM

Yet another reason I don't like buying games from the Xbox Live Marketplace (or Sony online).

You can't resell them and they have no distribution competitors so the prices are never discounted.

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