MCV is reporting that Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is the latest victim of supermarket price-cutting, with Morrison’s selling the Wii sports mashup for only £18.99 until Sunday. That’s a discount of over 50%, and a counter to Sainsbury’s free pack-in of the game with new Wii consoles.
Other games that have fallen victim to supermarket price cutting include EA’s FIFA 10 and Codemaster’s Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. The UK games industry has rallied against the increasing trend, calling it ‘worrying’. In the case of Mario and Sonic, although it can be argued that this price drop will get the game into more people’s hands, there’s no real reason to doubt that people would have bought this title at full price anyway. Regardless, it results in less money returned to the developer – money that, in a recession, publishers are finding hard to come by.
Man, you tell me something that finally makes me feel like giving the game a chance, then go and guilt me about it =(
Am I missing something here? Surely it’s the supermarket losing the money; not the developers. Developers don’t get a percentage of each sale; they sell the game to the retailers at their own price and the retailers then decide how much they want to sell it for.
Supermarkets don’t cannibalise their own profit margins like this. By forcing down prices, supermarkets bully suppliers/distributors to sell the the games to them at rock bottom value too. It has a knock-on effect that works its way backwards. Another way to look at it – those chickens that supermarkets sell at sub-quid prices… I highly doubt the farmers selling Morrisons/Tesco/whoever are getting massive bags of money for their stock for the stores to sell them like that. If you disagree, you have to wonder why Tesco makes so much money out of every spending pound coin.
It’s not quite hurting developers/publishers so much right this second, but the long-term impact and implications of a spiralling RRP-against-dev costs will end up negatively affecting the industry.
You know, this is happening alot with sonic games, watch any advert with cheap game offers. In any one there is SATBK SU SATSR! I think Sonic’s looseing it’s selling points… DAMN YOU SEGA! GO BACK TO THE OLD DAYS! infact, I saw a poll on the web “If you ran SEGA what would you do?” and i thought, “LISTEN TO THE GOD DAMN FANS!” =D ok, enough mindless bableing, back to main topic. I am surprised this happend so fast, tommorow, fine the relase date, O.O Wow…
everyone who couldent get the discounted fifa 10 stilll went to buy it from anougher shop. I guess the same will happen here!
This is why, you only buy grocereis from supermerket. Their sole aim is to make as much money as they can and replace existing brands with their own
Are Morrisons advertising this? If they are, they may be doing it as a loss leader – promoting a popular item at a loss in the hope that once customers get into the shop to buy the product, they’ll buy more because we are all MINDLESS SHEEP. Or something.
A lot of people will want to buy the game. No doubt it’ll be bobbing on and off the top of the charts for the next few months. So it would be a great loss leader.
@Riddic: It’s not limited to Sonic or even to SEGA. Right now we’re on a different topic.
Although the dropping price is a great quirk if you’re a Sonic fan, huh? (And it’ll likely still happen even with a title that is completely retro and completely ‘back to the old days’, if that’s even possible.)
Still not gonna get the game….maybe. lol
@Umiyuri: Well, my point was that if SEGA listened to the fans, the games would be better, more people would buy and the price wouldent be droped as a last dich effort to sell. but you do have a point about it being better value to buy! =D
@Riddic: Remember, not all fans have the same opinions. For example, I don’t understand how the Homing Attack is such a big pain to others in the 3D games. (But then again, I’ve never sent myself over a cliff from a Homing Attack.)
That’s sad. 🙁
@ Riddic:
Umiyuri is right, & besides, Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) was result of “a fanbase.” There’s a prime example of Sonic’s “divided” fanbase, that, & how “Needlemouse” is in 2D. XD
@ Riddic :
OK, lets listen to the fans!
Needlemouse now contains : Sonic Adventure 2 style play in SU Day time stages with Hyper Sonic, playable Shadow and a Chao Garden.. mixed with 2½ D!
Rock on!
and yes, it is a shame the vid game industry has been hit hard. Even thou the worst of the recession is over, more and more people are turning to the free online games. Maybe the current companies need to look there, cus its obvious that’s where the money is ( in game currency for real money exchange is flourishing )
Wow… people are getting worked up about my posts! ^_^ And yes I agree with ALL of you! Jix, SEGA need to hire that guy! but i think we are getting off topic! Well I’m hopefully getting it today! I’ll tell you what I think Svend!
@Riddic: It doesn’t have anything to do with Sega current status or the fact that they can’t get this game to sell. The game has just been releeased for crying out load, no one drops the price on DAY ONE of release, and if you look at other retailers prices there still selling the game at full price. Heck even the original M@S only got a price cut a month or so ago in the UK. The main issue as Dread and some others have pointed out, is what these retail outlest are doing and the somewhat negative effects a situtaion like this is going to have.
How ridiculous. Using games as a marketing tool. They could have done it with other product couldn’t they? There are surely other products which could easily claw back the money from this sort of annoyance. Books, for example, could have such price cuts. Maybe Morrisons are making a small step in trying to put the games industry out of business by creating a domino effect. Who knows? But it must be really heart-sinking to see a game that you helped to create being sold at about half price so close to its release date for any amount of time.
@ Golden Thunder
Arent all games a marketing tool used to get more people to like that certain company?
Since when is lower prices a bad thing? Lower prices means consumers are getting wealthier, which means they can buy more games (or whatever else they want to buy). If the laws of supply and demand result in lower prices, then that’s a good thing.
You shouldn’t feel any more guilty about buying a game at a discount price than you do about buying gas at a discount price.
You have to consider that it might not be that consumers are getting wealthier it could be because the company, here it is Morrison’s, are able to cut their prices because they are doing good business i.e. they are getting more people in their stores. It may seem good to have low prices now, but in the long run this would involve a tremendous loss or slow gain of money on the part of the games company, considering that the stores will take their share from that money as well. Because the games industry is a multi-million (enter currency here) industry and we are in/out of a recession every little bit of money is needed.
On the other hand the lower prices could get more sales, but it seems a bit dodgey in my opinion.
And Edge, what I meant was that this game is being used to pull people into Morrison’s to buy other things as well, rather than getting the public to like Sega itself, unless I misunderstand you.