Console games don't have sales?

http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/microsoft-offering-additional-xbox-live-ultimate-game-sale-items-for-great-prices/

So everyone says that it's going to be such a horrible thing if the new Xbox blocks used games because they'll never put their games on sale like Steam...

Well it turns out these people are wrong. Xbox is having an Ultimate Game Sale this week with digital games being on sale for as low as $2.99 and many at $4.99.

Halo 4, Halo Reach and Halo 3 were all on sale (Reach and 4 both being much newer games).

They may not be on Steam's level yet, but I think it's a great sign for what the future could bring especially if they ramp up digital distribution and try to get people away from using physical disc games.

I don't see what the price of the games has to do with anything. The issue, as far as I'm concerned, isn't that I can't get a game for $10 anymore -- it's that I should have the right to own and then sell things that I have bought. The first-sale doctrine is a worthwhile thing to preserve and we're just washing our hands of it for the sake of minor convenience. Used and resellable content has been the underpinning of much of modern society. Libraries, used book stores, used movies, used music, used games. Even used appliances, furniture, clothing, cars, homes.

When everything has a dollar value and that dollar value is set and controlled exclusively by the content's creator with no alternate set by those who have consumed the content and moved on from it (ie, ready to sell it used at a steep discount), we are in serious trouble. Much of society is not in a position where they can spend $50 to read a book or $30 for a movie or $60 for a game and they benefit directly from access to a used market.

El Shaddai for $2.99? It's still like $49.99 in stores.

i'll take a sale any way i can get it- but this pales in comparison to what steam does on the regular. don't get me wrong- i think it's great. but this is the first time i've seen anything close to a competitive price coming from microsoft.

Xbox sales rarely happen and when they do, they usually aren't good. Steam is the opposite.

Buy low, sell high.

That's all I've got.

We will see.

While I don't always agree with Microsoft's pricing decisions, it is good to see some of their recent offers where they've been genuinely providing good deals and pricing things closer to how you'd see them on Steam. I have to disagree with a lot of what you're saying though. Just because there are fairly good sales now, doesn't mean that we can suppose that one day Microsoft will be selling off games the same way Valve do, and I think if the next Xbox did block used games that would be a terrible thing.

The entire argument against the rumoured blocking of used games on the new console is not that blocking used games will be a problem because it will stop sales, that may be part of it, but the main point raised is that blocking used games will be bad in itself. Even if that wasn't the case, to say "People said if the next Xbox blocks used games there will be no more sales, but they're wrong because the current Xbox did a sale" just doesn't make any sense. The current Xbox is not the next Xbox. The argument is that if they did block used games on the next Xbox, they wouldn't have to have sales in an attempt to compete with the used game market as they currently do, because they'd have wiped out the used games market, so the fact they have sales on the current Xbox where there is a used games market essentially means nothing.

<p>I hope they do. The used game market hurts many developers and publishers, especially the small ones. The argument that the market spurs game sales is complete and utter BS as those "smart" people who buy used games to save 5 bucks trade in their games and buy another used game. They aren't buying new games. The only reason I've purchased used games in the past is if it was extremely expensive or relatively impossible to find the new game which won't be a problem with the next gen since pretty much everything will be available digitally.</p><p>So yeah, if you are a gamer and only buy used games, go away, this industry doesn't need you and you can stop whining about it. The PC used game market has been dead since 2004, people will get over it.</p>

These games are on sale because they're about to announce that there will be no backwards compatibility on the next Xbox and want you to spend all your money now before you find out. /cynical prediction

I can't wait until Microsoft finally gets my grandmother off the couch and buys us tickets to Cirque du Soleil.

Allow me to propose an amendment to the Uppity Gamer Doctrine:

Article 9-b-2.1 Console games don't have good sales.

All those in favor say aye

A sale on a small selection of games held within the same year that your next console gets announced, eight years after the initial release of your current console is NOT the same thing as the manner in which a company like Valve rolls out hot deals. Twice a year. For the past half a decade.

OP is making a false correlation here, fortunately others in the thread have already pointed this out!

This.

Used markets are essential for many consumers. There are a shit load of gamers who wouldn't be able to afford games without a cheaper alternative. Plus, there are used markets for nearly every form of media so why should this industry get a pass? They don't even have a revenue problem, they're one of the biggest industries in the world!

Wow, literally two games that came out later than or in 2010. Most of these games are 5 years old at this point. Please be a little less generous Microsoft.

As a preferably console gamer I hope this is the start of something. Maybe Microsoft will continue to do this on their next console?

Sony has been doing this for ages. Their sales have been better in my opinion. Sleeping Dogs and Dishonored for £10 each and Darksiders II for £9. They are pretty recent, right?

It's not just about used games, either. I often buy games with the intention of lending them to friends, who in turn let me play one of their games. I'll bring games to other people's houses to play. I don't know where to rent a game anymore other than getting a Gameaccess subscription, but the rental market gets killed too.

I also have to wonder if they want to tie games to an account or hardware, because that's a whole other bag of worms. Maybe not what we're talking about right now, but I buy physical copies of 3DS games if I think my girlfriend is going to want to play a game I want on her own 3DS. If that game locked to hardware or user account, we'd have to buy the same game on the same platform more than once per household, and I'm not okay with that (though that will be happening with Animal Crossing, but that's different)

The savings on buying a relatively new release used are negligible, but I just bought Killzone 2 for $5, and new it's like $20? If not for that price, I probably wouldn't have bought it.

Then there's the issue of collecting games later. I've been looking for certain Genesis and 32X games lately, and if I couldn't buy that old stuff used, then I couldn't buy it at all. I know it's rare, but even a used copy of Knuckles Chaotix on Amazon.ca sells for $120. If this is the future, then in 2025, if you want a physical copy of Halo 5, you're gonna have to pay like $300 for an unopened shrink-wrapped copy.

Well it's nice to see them offering a little something after their service rips 60 dollars out of the hands of people every single year just to play online when every-fucking-thing else does it for free. Even if most of those games are 5 years old and have been offered at or below those prices on Steam years ago.

I could kiss you right now. So I will.

*smooch*

Probably an accurate prediction even if it is cynical. Why put in backwards compatibility when you can make people buy the shit that they already paid for, sometimes multiple times, again. It doesn't make sense in terms of business. That way you can control the pricing and distribution of it too, especially if it is download only. It's just another example of this industry trying to monopolize the content instead of leaving it up to an open market.