Arm not required: Rock Band price cut in Europe, will only cost leg now

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 8th 2008 at 1:10PM }

EA has announced a drop of £20/€30 from the recommended retail price for the Rock Band Instrument Edition pack sold in Europe. This means the cost of the instrument bundle and game, which sold separately for a combined price of £180/€240, will go from the shocking price of $360 (when converted to American bucks), to the better-than-before price of $300.

EA also stated that the PS3, PS2 and Wii versions of the game will release this September on the continent. Hopefully, EA/MTV/Harmonix will work out better pricing for the sequel when it's eventually released in Europe ... or at least come up with a better excuse for the high price.

Tags: EA, europe, Harmonix, MTV-Games, rock-band

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

T @ Sep 8th 2008 1:22PM

This should come as great news to all those Europeans who were going to hold out because of the insanely high original price.

There WERE Europeans who held out because of the insanely high original price... right?

Jakka(Naked Peach Brigade) @ Sep 8th 2008 1:55PM

This is "only" £25-£30.

If somebody was desperate enough to buy RB, he'd have just payed the extra £30.If somebody refused to buy the game because of the price, this ain't gonna make them change their minds.

I suggest fucking EA, followed by refusal to buy any further HMX games.

M @ Sep 8th 2008 1:33PM

I'm sure that many other comments will bash the s**t out of the pricing/timing. I'd like to as well, but I decided to do a bit of math to back up my claims.

If I were to import the Wii version from Gamestop...

$169 for the game
$45.98 for shipping/handling

$215.98 total.

Unfortunately, the £'s been weakening against the dollar over the last 2 months (check out http://finance.google.com/finance?q=gbpusd), so anyone who still thinks £1 = $2 is sorely mistaken. It's actually closer to £1 = $1.75 :-(

So $215.98 -> £123.42

Add customs/VAT @ 17.5% (£21.60), and it'll cost me (roughly) £145.02 to self-import a copy of Rock Band from the US. RRP for the band pack + game is £149.98.

I reserve the right to say "F**k you EA!"... just more quietly than I would have liked to...