• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
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.
 

Mobilemofo

Member
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".
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
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.
 

Putonahappyface

Gold Member
u5uGT8j.jpeg

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.
 

Majormaxxx

Member
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 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.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
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.
 

Sleepwalker

Member
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.
 

Mownoc

Member
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.
 

jakinov

Member
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.
 

Mobilemofo

Member
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.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
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.
 

tmlDan

Member
None of those games are old, but yes, you gotta wait for sales.

They have been HEAVILY discounted several times a year
 
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.
 

Quantum253

Gold Member
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.
 

Rockman33

Member
$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?
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Here is the digital sales history, for example, of God of War Ragnarok

qkUEyQa.png


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
SQISTLW.png

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.
GdPNYA7.png

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.
 

rm082e

Member
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.
 
Top Bottom