The Price War Bites Back

So they've done it again.

Supermarkets today have once again taken a major release (in this case the biggest one of them all) and brought its price to the ground.

Sainbury's sold Modern Warfare 2 for £26, while Tesco was pushing it at £25 if bought with any other game. Asda went to £32, and Amazon closely followed Asda with a Price-match.

For the consumer this is great news, as they have a chance to get their hands on such a large title for less than half the RRP.

But what does this mean to the intellectual and sentimental value of the game?

Will this kind of price slashing devalue games, but more importantly tell customers that most other retailers (already selling at £10 below RRP) "they are charging too much!"?

In continental Europe, Japan and the Americas, aggressive price-slashing on video games is unheard of. MW2, Tekken 6, and games such as Smackdown 2010 will sell for by the shedload for the full RRP.

Why does the UK marker focus on market share and almost forget about profits. Isn't profit the key thing for a business existence.

We went into one of the largest Sainsbury's in Surrey today at 8am to find they had nearly sold out. At £26 Sainsbury's is losing a wopping £16 minimum on each copy sold.

What's worse? We observed for 10 minutes as the queues eased off and not a single person bought anything apart from the game (okay maybe one guy got a packet of .50p crisps). So we cannot see the 'loss-leader' argument fitting into any of this.

Anyway, back to playing Modern Warfare 2. The snowmobile stage is FANTASTIC!