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The Discounting Begins: 128-Bit Games For Nothing?
by Jeremy Horwitz for Gamers Today
It was clear that something weird was afoot when two of the year's hottest Dreamcast games became available at launch for bargain prices. Dead or Alive 2: $39.99 retail price. Resident Evil: Code Veronica, with rebate from Value America online, only $19.99. Now that summer has arrived, the bargains are really out there.
Retailers such as Kay Bee Toys have mounted an aggressive video game discounting campaign, clearing out inventories of Dreamcast games such as Trickstyle for under $8 and numerous Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation titles for under $15 - sometimes as low as $3.74. What does this mean for video game buyers? It's the start of the changing of the guard for today's generation of systems, and perhaps the dawn of a new age for game retailers across the country.
Cartridge-based titles for the Nintendo 64 seem to be at the forefront of retailers' disposal wish lists. N64 game boxes consume more space than CD cases and carry the burden of Nintendo's history of sitting unsold for many moons after Nintendo stops producing new games for a given console. As Nintendo has announced that its next console (Dolphin) will not use cartridges, some retailers seem to be preparing for the end of the Nintendo era by minimizing their N64 stocks in advance of the machine's demise. How far off is that demise? The N64 still has two holiday seasons left.
Sony has aggressively maintained price leadership over the video games market by engineering a two-stage pricing plan for PlayStation software - once a $40-50 title sells a million or more copies, its price is reduced to $20. Now retailers are now selling off some of the $20 PlayStation software for below $15, sometimes under $10. Unlike N64 games, however, sales of PlayStation titles are likely to remain pretty impressive over the course of the next three years, especially with the impending release of Sony's "portable" PS One console.
GameBoy software also shows no sign of going away. Though retailers are getting rid of some games at the $10 price point - a real bargain for GameBoy fans - most games remain at the $15 point or above, a real surprise considering that some N64 titles are selling for far less. GameBoy accessories continue to fall in price, however, as many companies keep churning out inexpensive devices that promise to somehow enhance GameBoy screens or speakers. And yes, there are occasional GameBoy games that fall under $10 - one online retailer was disposing of Quest for Camelot for under $8. It's rare to find a good GameBoy game at this price, though, so pounce if you see one.
The biggest surprise of the summer is Dreamcast discounting - even months ago, some online vendors were disposing of imported Japanese copies of Get Bass, the Sega fishing game, for under $10 - so long as you purchased another game. Kay Bee's special on Dreamcast games, clearing out a handful of titles for $7.50, beat all previous records for software discounting on a year-old game console, trumping even disposals of Atari Jaguar titles. And American DC titles at a number of other retailers can frequently be had with coupons for under $25 brand new - sometimes under $20. Does this mean that Sega's new console inevitably shares the Jaguar's fate? Not necessarily; DC titles have been aggressively priced for the benefit of retailers, and though a $7 game is probably losing a fair share of money, it's not as dramatic a loss as stores used to swallow on selling off cartridge titles. Cheap DC games may just be the thing that makes this system thrive in the United States.
Should we expect to see PlayStation 2 titles fall to this level? Not anytime soon. Though most present PS2 titles are CD-based, rather than DVD based, Sony is far less interested in software price leadership than Sega at this point, and will be pricing PS2 titles at a relative premium. When Sony starts to release DVD games en masse, the chances of seeing games hit even the $10 price level will be a real long shot for at least a year, if not longer - even a $20 title will be virtually impossible to find. Expect PS2 games to discount at $29.99 under unusual circumstances only for the first year, and maintain a $35-40 price level at relatively aggressive stores until the machine's second holiday season.
