What we heard: Even on their best days, most gaming message boards are not known as level-headed venues where different ways of thinking are welcome or accepted. So when Cheap Ass Gamer forum-goer "Hack" posted a picture of a GameStop flier over the weekend that said the retailer was requiring the $50 deposit on Wii and PlayStation 3 pre-orders to be paid in game trade-ins (cash or credit not accepted!), there was naturally much ado.
Gamers took the news and ran with it, spreading it around various message boards and getting a bit of coverage from news aggregators as well. However, as the news spread, it seemed certain nuances were lost. The original poster, Hack, updated his post to clarify things as he understood them after a call back to the store where he picked up the flier.
"I will repeat that I never said this was official, or meant this to be an official nationwide announcement," Hack wrote in an update to his post. "As the beginning of this post has always stated (or rather, used to state), I'm not aware if this is a nationwide trend or not (and we have learned that it currently IS NOT). I do live in Hawaii, and therefore this could only be in my region. This is basically a small scale test of this new pre-ordering method. That means that if this test succeeds in Hawaii, it could possibly take effect nationwide."
It seems the GameStop employee who filled Hack in had the facts straight. A spokesman for the retailer told us today that the pre-order stipulation is real, but stressed that it is only a test, and one that the company is conducting only in Hawaii. He also said the test began and ended today, and that the company doesn't have an official nationwide program for pre-orders yet. It's unknown if Hawaiian customers will get another crack at pre-orders in the nationwide program, whatever form it may take.
The test is over, and it will be a little while before we see whether or not GameStop decides to embrace that strategy on a nationwide basis. However, it seems likely that GameStop, and possibly other retailers as well, would do something to improve their bottom line on console launches.
Whereas the profit on new game hardware is traditionally very small, the profit on selling used games is considerably higher. Requiring trade-ins to cover the deposit would be one way for retailers to better their bottom lines without requiring the bundled purchases that have become common from online retailers, including GameStop's own Web store.
Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus that the plan is nationwide. Not bogus that GameStop was using Hawaii to test consumer reaction to the idea.
尽管PlayStation 3与Wii之间差价巨大,玩家们的价值观却无法用金钱来衡良——美国已经有不少PS3用户开始在网上交易平台发帖,希望能够用自己的PS3与Wii拥有者交换。
仅在craigslist.org上,就可以找到72个想要将手中PS3交换成Wii的游戏玩家:Austin六人,纽约18人,旧金山48人。
业内人士认为,玩家这种行并不难理解:有的人在PS3首发时囤积了数台PS3,此刻想要用其中一台交换Wii和一点现金十分自然,另外,eBay上PS3 价格正在不断走跌,圣诞节前Wii销量却有增无减,因此PS3的需求已经开始渐渐低于Wii——当然,还有一个最大的原因:买了PS3,却发现Wii才是 自己的最爱。
Wii已经开始通过非正规渠道进入国内市场,上海地区日版价格在2500RMB左右(无游戏),美版则高达3300RMB(含两款游戏)——很明显,节日期间购买Wii不是个高性价比的选择。