With the release of Modern Warfare 2 just around the corner, it seems that supermarkets in the UK have gotten a little trigger-happy with their pricing guns.
Although Activision are releasing the game at an inflated retail price of £54.99, Sainsbury’s will be selling it tomorrow morning for just £26 – more than 50% off. Not to be out done, Tesco will be going one pound lower to £25 – but only if you buy the game with any other title in their top 20. Other supermarkets are also getting in on the action. ASDA have Modern Warfare 2 for a now uncompetitive £32, while an unconfirmed rumour suggests Morrisons may drop to an incredible £17.99 if you spend another £25 in-store.
This price-slashing madness has come as a surprise to many online retailers, who have already sent out their higher-priced copies of Modern Warfare 2 in a bid to avoid postal delays. In an effort to keep up, Amazon have dropped their price from £45 to £32, and their price promise means this applies to pre-orders as well.
No one can deny that these low prices are good for gamers, but are they good for the games industry? This latest price war comes soon after ASDA admitted selling FIFA 10 at a loss, a practice that Konami’s UK general manager, Pete Stone, deemed “unnecessary and worrying”.
If the supermarkets continue their aggressive moves into videogame retailing, could we end up with a similar situation to the book industry? Celebrity biographies and guaranteed bestsellers are piled high alongside regular groceries, but book publishers refuse to take risks on anything that might not turn a profit. I’ll certainly be down my local Sainsbury’s when it opens tomorrow morning for some cheap MW2 goodness, but will we end up paying a higher price in the future?
Not long been down to the local ASDA who were refusing to let any more people cue for the game saying that they’d “allotted all copies”. This was at around 5 past midnight.
Ive just got back from Sainbury’s I tried to get a copy for the Xbox and the ps3 but I was only allowed one at once, so after taking my coat off and shoving it in a bag I returned to the queue. DEMOCRACY!
Hoping to profit from the UK’s situation I placed an order with Amazon, only to find an added fee of 6 pounds for shipping to the Netherlands! :(
See, for £26 I would consider buying it.
Here are the fruits of my day, score.
The pricing strategy for supermarket purchases is a great opportunity for gamers.
Many a time I have been in my local Edinburgh (Leith) Asda to find that titles are heavily discounted against their Asda online counterpart. Whether this is to do with excess local stock or what I do not know. My suspicion is that supermarkets have the licence to charge less if they are see it as likely to get more footfall.
After all, it makes sense to charge less if you come into the supermarket, as you are more likely to buy more things than if you were to buy online.
I would say, always check your local supermarket, you never know what bargains you’ll find.