Will we EVER get decent pricing for digital games from Microsoft (UK)?

I think MS are actually getting better with digital prices, FH2 ,SSOD and HMCC are all £44.99 in the store which all bar Halo I've now got digital and I don't mind paying that little bit extra for the pre download and getting day one. I know I'll be getting
digital copies of HMCC this weekend.

The other bonus of Digital is it's cheaper if you have two Xbox ones in your household

 

If you look at MS published games, their pricing is in line with retailer pricing. Other games such as COD, BF, Destiny are published by 3rd parties hence the price disparity.

Long story short, publishers are sticking it to my UK friends with digital prices. Its like they go out of their way to ensure you guys dont buy digital.

 

[quote user="Akame ga Kill"]

If you look at MS published games, their pricing is in line with retailer pricing. Other games such as COD, BF, Destiny are published by 3rd parties hence the price disparity.

Long story short, publishers are sticking it to my UK friends with digital prices. Its like they go out of their way to ensure you guys dont buy digital.

[/quote]

What are digital prices like in America, in comparison to physical version? What about with day one releases? I'm still yet to see a digital version of a game that is in line with retailers. Every single game is cheaper to buy on disc in store. (UK)

Someone else mentioned that they pay extra for the convenience of having it on day 1, and being able to pre-download. But you can pre-order online and the site I use will deliver it a day before release 99% of the time, so I'm sure there are other sites
that do the same.

I would assume that a lot of the reasoning behind the obscene prices we see by Microsoft would be because they CAN, and because people continue to actually pay those prices, as though there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

I'm not about to preach on how people should spend their own money, it just simply doesn't make much sense to me why anyone would rather pay more for something, when there isn't any benefits to doing so other than being able to pre-download it.

I'm interested now to see if our American friends are forced to pay more than retail for theirs (considerably more, like us), I'd hazard a guess that they don't.

 

@ShowbizMonkey

You say their are no overheads with hosting digital content, what about the cost of building a server farm that

Microsoft has recently just done in Holland, or what about the engineers that have to maintain them, or the bandwith to send them to you (Microsoft doesn't get that free)

Now I know this wont add much to the individual cost of each game, but then neither does the cost of the physical product add much. Seriously the actual cost for producing the physical cost is only a few pounds.

The main reason why Microsoft will not match or even undercut "bricks and mortar" shops or even internet shops is that Microsoft and Sony need them to sell their systems. If Sony or Microsoft suddenly started price matching Amazon, do you think Amazon would
accept it? more than likely they would stop stocking Microsoft's or Sony's products.

 

@Shaggy2000

Yeah, I won't claim to know what kind of pricing is involved in producing physical vs digital, I guess i'd just assume that the latter is much cheaper. But thanks for your post.. it's a bit of food for thought.

I totally 'get' that Microsoft won't match or undercut shops, BUT:

There has to be an incentive for consumers to go digital, and I simply do not see one.

Ultimately it comes down to them saying.... "Hey, would you like to buy this product? You can have a physical version of it, that you can see, touch and feel. You can do with it what you want, sell it and get some of your money back when you're done with
it. OR, you can have a digital version of the product, that has no resale value, and essentially it's like you're just buying the rights to play it. Oh and we'll charge you an extra £10-15 for it".

Simply no comparison for me.

 

One thing people REALLY need to stop doing (and not saying it was done in this thread), but comparing digital game prices with those of used games at (say) Gamestop. I hear that comparison a lot in these forums.

I, personally, have abandoned the physical disc model. Most of the games I buy/want, I purchase at release. So, the difference in price is non-existent. One of the few times I picked up a game a couple months after it was released was Plants vs. Zombies,
and in that instance, I waited for the game to be 33% off. Problem solved.

 

@Eggnogga

You say that most of the games you get, you purchase at release (digital version), and the difference in price is non-existent. Are you in America? The price is exactly the same as the disc version?

That's the point I'm making, in UK the price difference is pretty considerable. Would you still buy the digital if it was $16-$24 more? (that's the equivalent of the English pound £10-£15).

I too like to buy day one releases, but there's no justification for me to be paying that extra cost.

 

Here in Aus, Cod AW is $36 less to by from Target. This happens all the time with new releases, Save $36 and have game on Disc? How I see it is that EB/GS, Xbla and PSN are the 3 places that sell games for $100 here. There's rarely a time that digital is
worth it for me.

 

To quote the scorpion "it's my nature."

 

This gen. I only bought 3 disc version of the game other 24 full games I owned are digital.

 

@Showbiz -- Yes, I'm in America and yea the prices are the same.

 

Just to clear something up stop blaming microsoft for the pricing, it is the publishers of each game that sets the prices like EA, Ubisoft and Activision.

 

I would love to go digital but living in Australia, digital can be up twice as much for a game. Even with new games it's out of control. I can buy the new call of duty aw at my local target store for $64. On the Xbox store it's $100.20. There is just no
justification for those prices. No disc. No transport costs. No nothing except digital storage. It's blatant greed!

 

@Eggnogga - Thanks for clearing that up. I find it ridiculous that the price increase doesn't affect everyone though.

@AXIOMS OF FATE - Who says this is the case? Obviously the publishers price their disc version however they want, but you're sure Microsoft doesn't add something to the price for the digital version?

If so, then why are prices in America (according to Eggnogga) the same for digital and disc, but in the UK the digital version is considerably more expensive than the disc version? That's just a choice by the publishers?

I'm not suggesting you're wrong, I'm just asking how you know this is the case? Because it seems a bit strange, and basically unfair practice.

 

I wish MS would have better prices for digital. There are some games I don't want to have on disc as I'm planning on playing them for a long time, but buying digital is too expensive. If I can get a game for 45€ on disc, why would I pay 69€ to have the digital
version? And when the prices go lower for the physical copies, MS keeps their prices at 59-69€ range. No thanks. Though, recently they've had some ok sales and that's a major improvment to what's it been.