Product: Pre-owned games
Cheapstake intel rating: Prices over heated means high risk of price crashing
Cheapstake intel prediction: Looming fire sale on pre-owned
Cheapstake intel recommendation: Trade in games whilst still getting good value
Cheapstake intel likelihood of bargains: High
As per GAME going under:
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/70032
on the weekend I was going to post on here in cheapstake intel how I reckon GAME was going to go under so best use your store credit quick smart!
On Friday went to GAME store and they had heaps of pre-owned stuff and very little brand new stuff, asked sales guy and he said they havent been getting stock from distributors……not a good sign!
So decided hit 3 games stores on Sat and used up $90 worth of store credit, cause they had a 3 for 2 you can pick up stuff cheap that can trade into JB for same value of JB credit, like Child of Eden and other stuff. Had to go to three stores to get stuff of value though.
Also when UK GAME went under that was a sign to use bulk of GAME store credit so used up $400 worth of credit whilst they had 20% off everything sale, that was 20 days ago, LUCKY!
I still got $25 left with them, I guess thats gone now.
In hindsight feel bad they gone under as their trade-ins were great but really the market for pre-owned stuff which makes up a bulk of the GAME business model is on shaky ground and I predict is going to crash in a big way, who wants to buy COD: Black ops or even COD: MW3 pre-owned when:
- You can get it cheaper on ebay
- You can get it cheaper from UK
But the biggest issue is, you rather spend on getting Max Payne or somthing else new cause MW3, Batman AC, Uncharted 3 and BF3 were all yesterdays game, I am not going to pay top dollar for old stuff.
The gaming market is just over saturated, every month if not week there are new games coming out which means it dwindles the value of preowned stock, as more and more supply of new stuff means there is less demand for pre-owned games thus the value drops.
Yes, pre-owned stuff was worth a bit back in the day but thats beacuaes there was not a huge supply of games coming out every month like there is now. Remember when MW2 was fecthing over $60 or more for over a year! Not any more, you can get MW3 for $30 of ebay AU or ebay UK and it came out like 6 months ago.
Games are just not holding value as long as they used to, they are falling in value faster.
Furthermore the distributors have wised up just a little about the online market and new games RRP arnet starting at $119 anymore they are now $99, you can even pre-order Future Soldier for $69. So there is and will continue to be a downward shift in new game prices, what does that mean for pre-owned stuff that started at higher prices……can mean only one thing.
EB, JB and GAME got heaps of stock of pre-owned stuff which is just over valued and it loses value each time a new game comes out, especially big games like Max Payne and there just arent that many cashed up clueless mom and dads around anymore to keep the over priced pre-owned market alive.
Hence watch this space, pre-owned price are going to have to come back to reality quick and GAME going under is a good indication of that.
when is house price going to crash? :P
good detective work