Bummed by the price of "old" games on ps store

Hi,

I just pre-ordered my ps5 pro and bought a new TV last week.
So I was preparing my future library and checked the current prices of the games I wanted to get to have an idea. Bear in mind that I nearly did not play since ps5 appeared for various reasons.

Now that I have my ultimate library to start with, I was expecting, as it was the case during PS3 and PS4 that I could grab old games for cheap as I was expecting prices to go down after some time

What a shock it was to me when I saw the actual prices. Price do not fall anymore with time ?

Look at some prices I got on PS store. I thought it was insane.

God of war Ragnarok: 80€
Returnal : 80€
Elden ring : 60€
Sackboy : 70€
GT7 : 80€.

Did I miss something ?
Gaming became expensive as hell. I'll surely wait for the recurring sales but base price is quite high.
 
Did I miss something ?
Yes, buying digital means you're basically paying full price unless you can wait for the game to be on sale. There will probably be a huge digital sale around Black Friday at the end of November or around Christmastime in December.

You're almost always going to be better off just buying the disc drive and scouring your local used market for these games.
 
Just buy the drive and look for cheap 2nd hand physical copies of these games.
 
Love the thread title. Big fan.

Digi games have been generally quite expensive for a long time. The key, as always, is to wait. Sooner or later, that shit will go on sale. There's no need to "take one for the team".
 
Yes, buying digital means you're basically paying full price unless you can wait for the game to be on sale. There will probably be a huge digital sale around Black Friday at the end of November or around Christmastime in December.

You're almost always going to be better off just buying the disc drive and scouring your local used market for these games.

During a digital PSN sale that 80€ game will at most get a 25% discount so you'll "only" pay 60€. Whoopdeedoo. That's still a ripoff for games that are more than 1 year old.
 
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Buy It GIF by Lucas and Friends by RV AppStudios
 
During a digital PSN sale that 80€ game will at most get a 25% discount so you'll "only" pay 60€. Whoopdeedoo. That's still a ripoff for games that are more than 1 year old.
yeah they are insanely greedy. It started this gen. The games used to go down real cheap on sales, not anymore. I remember tlou2 going for $10 and gow going for $20. Especially 1st party. 3rd party games are different. Kingdom come deliverance was (maybe still ) on sale for $5.
 
Hi,

I just pre-ordered my ps5 pro and bought a new TV last week.
So I was preparing my future library and checked the current prices of the games I wanted to get to have an idea. Bear in mind that I nearly did not play since ps5 appeared for various reasons.

Now that I have my ultimate library to start with, I was expecting, as it was the case during PS3 and PS4 that I could grab old games for cheap as I was expecting prices to go down after some time

What a shock it was to me when I saw the actual prices. Price do not fall anymore with time ?

Look at some prices I got on PS store. I thought it was insane.

God of war Ragnarok: 80€
Returnal : 80€
Elden ring : 60€
Sackboy : 70€
GT7 : 80€.

Did I miss something ?
Gaming became expensive as hell. I'll surely wait for the recurring sales but base price is quite high.
bro, order a disc drive and buy the games used.
 
Yes, buying digital means you're basically paying full price unless you can wait for the game to be on sale. There will probably be a huge digital sale around Black Friday at the end of November or around Christmastime in December.

You're almost always going to be better off just buying the disc drive and scouring your local used market for these games.
Well, it was not at all like that during PS3 and PS4. I have more than 200 PS4 games and 30€ was my max for AAA games older than one year....
 
I thought it was $10?
$10 if you already own the expansion on PS4 and want to upgrade to the "Director's Cut" on PS5.
$30 if you just own the base game, and want to upgrade to the "Director's Cut" on PS5
 
I know I would be able to have better deals with physical copies but I got used to the convenience of full digital games during PS4 era...
I guess I have no more choice....hmm not good at all.
 
During a digital PSN sale that 80€ game will at most get a 25% discount so you'll "only" pay 60€. Whoopdeedoo. That's still a ripoff for games that are more than 1 year old.
Exactly. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm not a day one buyer. I generally buy games older than 1 year. It keeps my budget in check.
 
They are still charging full price for some PS4 games, and some never go on sale. Welcome to the age of digital fuckery!
 
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Well, it was not at all like that during PS3 and PS4. I have more than 200 PS4 games and 30€ was my max for AAA games older than one year....

I know I would be able to have better deals with physical copies but I got used to the convenience of full digital games during PS4 era...
I guess I have no more choice....hmm not good at all.

When the PS5 generation started, they realized that
  • people are happy paying $70 per game instead of $60
  • digital discounts don't need to cut so deep
  • digital discounts don't need to happen so often
  • digital-only consoles existing means they're happy to keep milking ancient games
  • they can increase the price of digital games (as recently seen with Horizon: Zero Dawn)
So, if you're cool with all that then by all means keep buying digital.
 
I know I would be able to have better deals with physical copies but I got used to the convenience of full digital games during PS4 era...
I guess I have no more choice....hmm not good at all.

Exactly. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm not a day one buyer. I generally buy games older than 1 year. It keeps my budget in check.

If the budget is an issue you need to sacrifice the convenience, not only will you get the games cheaper but you can also resell them or trade them for others you want to play reducing your cost even more.

It's not even a contest on whats cheaper.
 
Thousands of digital games go on sale every other week. Never buy digital at full price unless it's a brand new game.

Generally the full price doesn't get a price cut, it's just the sales when it is discounted get bigger and bigger with time.
 
Prices only go down because either physical stores are trying to get rid of stock or because demand has gone down so they lower prices to increase number of sales.

The prices will eventually go down when demand goes down further but they aren't going to reduce the price simply for being older.
 
During a digital PSN sale that 80€ game will at most get a 25% discount so you'll "only" pay 60€. Whoopdeedoo. That's still a ripoff for games that are more than 1 year old.
You should watch the store a bit more. Those games do get much deeper discounts. I've bought a few that have been heavily discounted later on. We all know the cods always stay high, but seriously, fuck cod.
 
If the budget is an issue you need to sacrifice the convenience, not only will you get the games cheaper but you can also resell them or trade them for others you want to play reducing your cost even more.

It's not even a contest on whats cheaper.

Thing is, the more people only buy used, the less interested retailers are going to be in selling the physical games in the first place. It'll only make it that much easier for Sony/MS to ditch the drive in future consoles.
 
Killing physical is in the best interests of the console makers since they control the only store you can buy games from.

On PC I could get every one of those games (except GT which hasn't released yet) for cheaper because of it's competitive digital marketplace.

This is how it's always been on console though.
 
None of those games are old, but yes, you gotta wait for sales.

They have been HEAVILY discounted several times a year
 
That's why we should push back hard if they ever try going digital only. Don't take choices away from us. Especially ones that are hugely beneficial to us.
 
When the PS5 generation started, they realized that
  • people are happy paying $70 per game instead of $60
  • digital discounts don't need to cut so deep
  • digital discounts don't need to happen so often
  • digital-only consoles existing means they're happy to keep milking ancient games
  • they can increase the price of digital games (as recently seen with Horizon: Zero Dawn)
So, if you're cool with all that then by all means keep buying digital.
The fact that a digital purchased is linked to an account for perpetuity is the real culprit here. No good, no good. And no I'm not ok with this.
 
Agree. Where's the PS classics prices?
Just got a ps5 a few weeks back and wanted to get Ghosts of Tsushima and it's $70.
I can wait until a sale but I wish I didn't have to.
I just can't pay $70 for a 4 year old game.
 
Welcome to digital stores.
They go on offer every now and then, but discs > digital.
Been plenty of times finding awesome games at the thrift, garage sales, online etc. For a few bucks while the digital version costs 10x that. Steam has some good sales, but console storefronts have never been worth going digital because they have never been competitively priced.
 
$10 if you already own the expansion on PS4 and want to upgrade to the "Director's Cut" on PS5.
$30 if you just own the base game, and want to upgrade to the "Director's Cut" on PS5
Is there anyway to just get the upgrade without the expansion? As I'm not interested in the expansion?
 
Here is the digital sales history, for example, of God of War Ragnarok

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It's been discounted 6 times in the past year-ish since gg deals started tracking Playstation games. 5 out of 6 times, it was discounted to $39.89 (from $69.99), so not even half off. In August, it was discounted only to $49.59.

Here's the same price history in the same timeframe for Gran Turismo 7
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Again only reaching a threshold of $39.89 as the bottom floor of the discounts, with various other steps between that and full price along the way.

Finally, an older game - Returnal. Same time frame, let's look at the discounts.
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At least this one has been marked down below 50% off in the past year.


One common trend I'm seeing is that the digital games usually get discounted around Christmas, and then don't go any lower than that throughout the entirety of the following year. Wildly different strategy than something like Steam where publishers and developers are free to generate their own digital keys and sell them elsewhere without having to give Valve a cut, thus promoting actual competition for digital pricing.
 
You can buy every game on this list physically for half the price you listed and Im not even talking about used copies.

After buying a few games the cost of the disc drive will be paid off.
 
Hi,

I just pre-ordered my ps5 pro and bought a new TV last week.
So I was preparing my future library and checked the current prices of the games I wanted to get to have an idea. Bear in mind that I nearly did not play since ps5 appeared for various reasons.

Now that I have my ultimate library to start with, I was expecting, as it was the case during PS3 and PS4 that I could grab old games for cheap as I was expecting prices to go down after some time

What a shock it was to me when I saw the actual prices. Price do not fall anymore with time ?

Look at some prices I got on PS store. I thought it was insane.

God of war Ragnarok: 80€
Returnal : 80€
Elden ring : 60€
Sackboy : 70€
GT7 : 80€.

Did I miss something ?
Gaming became expensive as hell. I'll surely wait for the recurring sales but base price is quite high.

https://psprices.com/

You can create an account, add games to your wish list, and they'll email you when they go on sale. Same thing on PC at https://isthereanydeal.com/. I've been using these for years and it's very easy to build up a huge backlog of games you got at low prices.
 
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