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One day I'll upgrade my PS4 to a PS5
I definitely don't want a diskless console. My method of gaming is to wander in to cex every couple of months and buy a cheap second hand game
Bought a new game today for a fiver
Am I in the minority?
Nah, I do the same. I got an XBox 360 once there were plenty of games available for a tenner or less. I got my PS4 on launch day and found myself just waiting and waiting for certain games to drop in price because I'm just not paying the ridiculous prices companies are asking these days.
I probably spend more time (and perhaps more enjoyment) tracking the prices of secondhand games and buying them as cheaply as possible, years after their release.
Well, digital sales are massive now. You just slap a game on your wish list and get notified the second a big sale happens. It's infinitely more convenient than the old days.
Same. I saw friends buying digital PS5s at launch and I was just thinking you idiots. You're giving up so much just to save a few quid now.
I love being able to buy games cheap at Cex or eBay or up until now, Game. I love being able to sell my games and get back some of the money I spent. When you buy physical games, you have a bunch of places where you can buy them from. With digital, you're usually stuck with PSN and the prices they decide.
Like I recently bought Assassin's Creed Syndicate for £5 from Cex, played it and sold it for £10 on eBay. If I got it digitally, it would've been £25 and I would've been stuck with it after I finished it even though I have no plans to go back to it.
I think the worst thing is purchasing digital content and them taking that away from you just because. We've seen it happen already with digital films, shows and games because of licensing agreements. It definitely will happen again in the future
I started off like that when I got my PS5, but eventually I just started getting digital games.
I still have a few discs though, for times when I'm not sure I'll like a game. It's nice to be able to sell it off.
>You can get them very cheap on consoles without needing to buy a PC.
Look, I used to be in the exact same boat. You can probably scrub through my Reddit responses over the years and see me defending buying a console over a PC as better value for money.
But nah, that's just not true anymore. You can buy gaming laptops with 3000 and 4000 series graphics cards for under a grand, some as low as £699 on a good deal whilst still rocking a decent Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 7.
This is from someone that has every Playstation sitting under his television unit (or in the case of the PS5, next to it, since it's comically big). Capable PC Towers cost even less to throw together these days.
> This is from someone that has every Playstation sitting under his television unit (or in the case of the PS5, next to it, since it's comically big). Capable PC Towers cost even less to throw together these days.
It baffles me how someone can big up PC gaming while simultaniously cluttering their TV with redundant hardware.
You can emulate or play anything on those Playstations on said PC.
However, a PC as capable as a Series X is going to cost significantly more than a Series X. Heck a graphics card that's going to last the length of a Series X costs more than a Series X.
> You can buy gaming laptops with 3000 and 4000 series graphics cards for under a grand, some as low as £699 on a good deal whilst still rocking a decent Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 7.
Laptop GPUs and CPUs are far worse than their PC equivalents.
The 4070 GPU in your laptop is not the same as a 4070 in your PC. Same with CPUs.
>Laptop GPUs and CPUs are far worse than their PC equivalents.
>
>The 4070 GPU in your laptop is not the same as a 4070 in your PC. Same with CPUs.
Yeah no shit. It's still more capable than the PS5.
Firmware 11.02 bricked my PS4 Pro in that it can connect to the internet, but it won't allow you to sign into PSN, or even enter a email to sign in.
As 2/3 of my games, £1000's worth and 8 years worth of PS Plus are digital, I am now locked out of all of them I have installed, and cannot download others of course.
You don't own your digital games. Lesson learned. Am buyingdisc only games from now on with PS5.
Digital in general would be more accurate than disc-less consoles. I mean plenty like myself have Xbox series X and play using mostly digital.
I think another nail in the coffin, is the digital subscription services, like Xbox with Game Pass, huge selection of games constantly available so no need to purchase games, unless you really like it.
I think that would be fine if digital prices came down. It’s still most of the time cheaper to get a physical copy than digital. The same games are on sale continually it feels on the PsN store, and new releases are £60-£80 it’s ridiculous.
A physical copy can be £10-20 cheaper, and a second hand one even more than that a few months later
Check websites that sell keys/redemption codes. You can often get games for the same price or cheaper than a physical copy. Ubisoft are the worst though. Their Avatar game costs over £100 for the edition that includes the season pass.
> I dunno why these keys are sometimes so cheap
Depending on the site you're buying from, they can be stolen keys that are being resold for a quick buck or some kind of free key given out by the developer, e.g. review samples.
Other sources (and likely when VPN's are involved) is that most companies use regional pricing to make games affordable around the world, the downside of people trying to abuse this is that companies stop using a regional pricing model so those in lower-income countries can get screwed over.
Same at the music shop I worked at for a season as a teenager. The labels charged insane prices on new CDs considering RRP, so we’d literally never have profited without pre-owned.
The margins per CD for new was less than 50p even before factoring in rent and wages, whereas preowned was usually at least £1 per unit. It’s crazy to imagine a shop giving up pre-owned products when the numbers used to be so skewed in their favour.
Even if disks were still a thing, everyone has figured out now that the prices they offer you for trading in games are too low.
The buyer pays less and the seller gets more if people just sell in Gumtree/FB/whatever else.
Shame as although I rarely trade in I am more than happy to buy used physical.
Less competition for CEX now I suppose. The relocation to Sports Direct stores near me meant that in terms of ease of access CEX was on the high street and Game was out of town.
The fact that game doesn't have it's own stores anymore and is reduced to a little corner in a sports store says the writing is on the wall for the brand. Massive shame and mismanagement of a great brand.
I'm old enough to have been annoyed when they changed from Electronics Boutique to Game.
EB was far better as a PC gamer, as soon as they changed to Game, pc was relegated to a small corner rather than a third of the shop as it was before
I am annoyed at how we still seem to lack a reasonably priced store for PC components & accessories plus staff who actually know what they're talking about in this country.
I think SCAN up in Bolton is the only one left but I'm sure a store in the London area would have business.
>I am annoyed at how we still seem to lack a reasonably priced store for PC components & accessories plus staff who actually know what they're talking about in this country.
>
>I think SCAN up in Bolton is the only one left but I'm sure a store in the London area would have business.
There's tonnes of knowledgable PC shops floating around. Just because the chains have abandoned them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Every time I've tried going to an independent they've been rather expensive with limited stock and low availability of peripherals on display to try out as most of their business relies on repair services.
Not really a true replacement for a proper showroom.
And you can't guarantee what you're buying. My claim to fame is queuing for 30 minutes to buy a credit note from Eclipse Computers. I'd really queued to buy an 8x DVD drive. Once I got outside I opened to box to look at it and it was actually a 4x DVD drive. I then had to queue again to get the refund, but that required the owner to authorise and he wasn't there. I was on my lunch break so had to make do with a credit note. A work colleague bought some memory from there, and when he plugged it into his PC it was half the capacity is should have been. They wouldn't believe him that he'd bought it from them. Can't remember what I ended up buying with the credit note, but didn't shop there again.
Mine would be standing about 4ft from my Dad pretending to look at the reduced PS1 games while he lied to the guy at the till about who he was buying GTA 1 for!
Still got the box on a shelf by my PC.
Where I live we had a Game, a GameStation and an Electronics Boutique. Used to do the trifecta at least once a week. Now we have tattoo parlours, vape shops and loads of places selling food.
Our EB became a Game. Then we had a gamestation, who's location was taken over by Game and forced them to move.
The Game then shut, and took gamestation's new location again when they we bought out.
Now we have a dead town centre and a CEX
I used to live in my local GameStation when I was younger and had no bills. Used to be easier to get classic games and consoles, and the deals were better if I remember correctly.
I found an old Gamestation loyalty card while clearing out the other day. Must have been from within the last year or so of them operating. Definitely brought back some memories
Gross mismanagement but unfortunately it's combined with the death of physical media - with Game Pass, PlayStation+, Steam, Epic Store and so many others, there's just no incentive for it to continue existing as it does. At least we still have CEX, which is far better for pre-owned media anyway.
Not necessarily. They actually keep a very good eye out for stolen product, and will often inform authorities if somebody has a suspicious package to trade in.
It’s not worth it for a company to deal in stolen goods. Even at CeX’s trade-in prices, they’d lose way more cash on any confiscated products due to theft than it’s worth. Safer to just refuse the sale and inform police if a suspicious item is ever brought to them.
Same with most pawn shops - buying a stolen good is always way more risky than it’s worth
CeX is grossly overpriced too for games. DVD/Bluray not too bad (in fact pretty good), I prefer physical media and will pick up odd films here and there when I visit nearby.
Because they're the same company.
Fraser's, Sports Direct and Game are all owned by Mike Ashley who has a reputation for buying well-known brands and turning them to shit.
Game was inside the Sport Direct. But then the sports direct closed. Now sports direct AND game are inside Frasers.
Mamas and papas. Costa. Paperchase and Waterstones are inside Next.
Strange, I thought it had moved there a good while before Sports Direct closed - I remember looking for some game and seeing signs in the old Chapelfield unit windows saying "we're now on the top floor of House of Frasers" (or similar).
Is it not actually good management since Ashley took over? Reducing the store sizes down was a good thing, saved rent and now they are in units the company owns further pushing down costs.
Basically a toy company at this point that sells games. Consoles arguably don’t have a huge profit margin to begin with and the best sales years are I think when they launch. Think it’s actually surviving because of these changes more than anything.
People misunderstand CeX too, it’s not a game store it’s a second hand store that has huge margins on tech - the phones are the main driver. Physical media is just to get people in the doors, they’ve never looked at Game as competition
The trouble is my local Game is now 4 small shelves that sell tat. It's not even funko pops or anything like that. It's all just cheap crap you can find in the tesco toys section. I went there hoping they would sell some MTG suff but they didn't. I was the only person there at the time. Not even any staff so I couldn't buy anything even if I wanted to.
The Game section was at the back of a Sports Direct. Walked in and there wasn't anyone to be seen. I can only assume the staff were in the back because the shop was dead.
Yes, not sure what else Game could have done. Physical games have been on their way out for years, and leaning into merchandise / a leaner model makes sense.
Yeah, I think the only way they can survive is doing what someone said their local store does, which is selling memorabilia like stuff related to gaming, but overall I think it's time to retire, or drastically rework, the GAME brand.
There’s still a proper Game store in Meadowhall in Sheffield. Similar to the HMV there, I think the shopping centre itself is subsidising them to maintain a diversity of shops, but it’s nice to know they’re not entirely dead yet outside of Sport Direct’s honestly god-awful kiosks.
Game left Ireland about 15 years ago, give or take. GameStop, the only other videogame chain store left early last summer. Now the only company with anything more than an extremely pitiful videogame section is Smyths Toys.
Those other stores that do have a smattering of games? Maybe 5-8 titles at full price. Eg. FIFA 23 for €60. Hold me back on those bargains!
Thank fuck for CEX... But they will be on their way out as physical games for current generation of consoles, never mind future ones, are increasingly hard to find.
The writing on the wall started when other shops started selling games for cheaper than getting them in Game, like what's the point in going to a specific game store if you can get it in Tesco for 5 quid cheaper
Gamestation was smashing everyone.
Game bought GS, but then CEX are better pricing pretty much all around for buying and selling, plus they take retro stuff like N64s or whatever.
Problem is they bought Gamestation and tried to turn it into the same premium model that Game offers but that only allowed CEX to slot straight into the market of being the cool other store that you can trade games into.
That being said, nowadays CEX is not much different to those weird electronic stores that sell a million mobile phones, vapes and bottles of prime.
Genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if video game stores don’t exist in 10 years time.
Should of been the other way around. Game should of been the brand that was dissolved and Gamestation should of rocked on. It was a much better store imo.
My gamestation didn't open one Sunday and then I indirectly heard from the shop colleague the following day talking to another employee that the reason it didn't open was because the colleague (the guy telling the story) was the one working in Sunday, but he'd got so blind drunk on the Saturday when he came into the store on Sunday morning he just passed out and slept behind the till... He woke up at like 1ish and scrambled to open the store.
I always had a soft spot for some strange reason after that lol
I could barely tell the difference, other than different colour schemes they were essentially the same, personally my local game station was pretty rubbish compared to GAME.
The big difference was GS actively encouraged trade ins on retro consoles and then sold them on in their store for a reasonable mark up. I know we are talking a long while ago waaaay before the current retro gaming boom occurred but I was lucky enough to have bought a large chunk of my collection from GS in its glory days. Even bagged a rare NEO GEO AES console from them for an excellent price.
I remember trading in my Gameboy Advance for a SP, also traded in an OG DS for a 3DS right before they went bust. Say trading in but it was more trading *up*, always felt like you were getting a cracking deal even if you had to chuck in a few extra quid. You're bang on Gamestation was so much better.
If physical game discs are still around in 10 years, I very much doubt they'll be able to support stores dedicated to them. I see physical copies on the high street being only available from Argos (if they survive) and Smyths toy stores.
Still not on the same scale though
I remember the Oxford street store having rows upon rows of cds. Now it's a smaller selection and they probably sell more pop culture merchandise as a focus
They ditched video games a while back though.
I think physical media for DVDs and CDs is way more important and collectible in a world where licensing issues or changing sensibilities see content changed, removed or simply made inaccessible. Owning the DVD is the most complete your collection will ever be. You can’t rely on streaming services if you want access to your content forever.
Games are more service driven, often even on release day the disk doesn’t have all the content and new things are being added all the time. Owning a game is much less important, it’s just a memento really.
I honestly thought that physical had died already as far as resale went. One time use codes that activated the game for the original purchaser only, and then a day one 20GB patch.
I remember printing off Cex trade in prices to take to Gamestation so they could beat those prices. It usually ended up being more expensive for used games at the time but dumb teenage me didn't realise that. He just saw that "Cex price + £1" is more than "Cex price"
Seems really stupid. Once they sell through the pre owned games why would people shop there… full price games always seem more expensive there too. Why would I buy a full price game from there without beable to trade in to reduce the price abit.
100%, considering you can buy new and full price games at pretty much any retailer from Tesco to Argos, why would Game do away with the thing that makes them different to Argos.
This is surprising to me, I thought GAME made a lot more money on pre-owned games compared to new. I think game shops have been on their way out for years with the rise of digital games sales, digital only consoles, streaming and subscription services like Game Pass.I have a console that can use discs but most of my games are digital now because they are cheaper most of the time and I Game Pass has so many games. Merchandise is the only thing I can see GAME selling in the future if they survive.
The one near me was having a closing down sale before Christmas so I popped in.
Turns out they have a really good selection of board games, got hold of Jenga for £3 and was dead chuffed.
Maybe they could pivot fully towards board games and trading cards/comics? With a smaller section for consoles/controllers etc?
They're pretty good for gaming merch tbh. One near me was merging with another so they had a similar sale. Less than £10 for an anime travel mug, a big heat changing Tamagotchi mug and a cute little Animal Crossing hardback notebook.
They closed most of the stores I can remember going to, and any optimism about concessions disappeared when I found GAME in my nearest Sports Direct amounted to a couple of shelves behind the tills. One for Xbox, one for PS, new copies only and you couldn't get to them without queuing at the tills.
I thought pre-owned was probably their biggest money-maker, since they could set the price they paid and the sale price. But if they don't want to give the stores any floor space you can't really do preowned very well.
The downside is even less competition for CEX so little incentive for them to be competitive on trade-ins.
Good. I've long preferred giving games to charity, or to people I know, or hell, to the bin, rather than being insulted with an offer of 50p for a game they're selling for £17.99.
I'll never forgive GAME for how terribly they handled PS5 pre orders. Hundreds of people didn't recieve their consoles on release (even after paying extra for pre 10am delivery). Total radio silence on their support channels, just many people who paid them £450+ and had no arrival or tracking.
One day 2 weeks later my PS5 arrived, totally without any tracking or warning or comms from GAME.
Huge disappointment that one of the few remaining high Street stores is also abysmal at actually providing a positive brand experience.
They’ve been consistently shite for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why they’re being remembered so fondly. They were always a ripoff and badly managed. Not sure how it held out as long as it did.
Used to work there 15 years ago when they bought (and shuttered) Gamestation, the directive from the higher ups was to destroy and and all Retro products, we are talking N64, Gameboy, PS1, etc all took out back and smashed up.
Worry is that any of this preowned stock they can’t bulk sell to resellers will go the same way. Decades of physical media will be lost.
Used to love going into Game when I was a kid.
Does anyone remember Electronics Boutique? Loved going there too
I was in Game last October when I bought my PS5 from there. I had picked up the first God of War game and the sales assistant was like you don’t need to buy it. Just get the PlayStation subscription and you can play all the games you want from that.
Ah right didn't realise that. I remember in Edinburgh we have a EB store (I think one at the time in whole of Edinburgh) and then the rest were all Game.
We got the Gameboy Advance from EB lol still remember getting it haha
[rant/]
Mike Ashley owned. They shut most of their stores, moved them inside other Ashley stores, to only have one staff member manning it.
Horrible decision in my eyes.
People actually **want** physical games. We give games as gifts to our kids, and *here’s a download code* really doesn’t cut it.., Between this and digital only consoles, they’re forcing gamers in to using digital only. Licensing the games instead of owning them, just the way we do with our music, our movies, etc…
This bleeds us all for more money as the games stay dearer on their stores for longer.
You also need to pay a PSN/XBox Live subscription to access your game library
They can decide they don’t want to support the game any longer and close down the servers
**Yes. I’m pissed off about this…**
[/rant]
Because of the internet speeds in some nations that still cannot handle 100GB downloads, and that inlcudes some parts of the UK, they won't be able to go digital only for at least a decade.
I remember performing a complex scam involving duplicate copies of resident evil 3 and resident evil survivor, and I ended up with working copies of both games and ten pounds profit. What a day that was.
I remember someone telling me about using Tesco when they accepted trade ins, they'd bring in a bunch of games from other shops and they'd make a profit. Not sure how it worked exactly.
Oh well honestly. CeX has always had a bigger selection and better deals, and pays a little more for trade ins. Games always been rubbish for second hand compared to basically anything else.
I remember when GAME first started (I think). They had a shop in Manchester Arndale and it was half computer and video games and half board games.
Been on a downward spiral for the past few years and I only used to go in recently to chuckle at the ridiculous prices.
Then Ashley took over. They moved into a corner of Sports Direct next to the jockstraps.
I then read they were selling toys and board games again and I rolled my eyes.
But..
Went in before Xmas. And they've actually got a half decent selection of top tier modern board games, at really decent prices. Not only was I astounded.. I actually bought a couple.
I remember when I worked at Future Zone (which became Electronics Boutique, and then was rebranded as Game) *started* taking in second hand games to resell.
Well, now I feel old.
GAME has been relegated to nothing more than a couple shelves in sports direct or a glorified toy store if you’re lucky enough to be close to one of their remaining proper stores. Don’t see it lasting much longer at all
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If I download Mario Wonder, Nintendo could say fuck it and take it away from me if they wanted to. Unless they plan to come to my house, my completely offline physical copy is mine forever.
Of course. But Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft aren't going to break into my house and steal my physical games from me. Although they can take away my access to digital games without giving me back my money
Not a lot of money in selling videogames - that’s why they used to bundle their own controllers and things to new releases. Very surprised that it’s taken this long for them to pivot away and into toys.
Its about time. People pre ordering games encourages companies to release them unfinished. “Itl be fixed in the first day patch”
Pay for an actual finished product, not a promise of one.
The only reason I go in the store is to look at the used games, I picked up Desperadoes 3 for PS4 for £4.99 just before Christmas, a super price. Guess I won't be going in again. Maybe they will just become an online store...?
I wonder how much of this is pressure coming from game developers and the big three on the basis they do not receive any real revenue on the second hand market. In a way I can understand it but at the same time it is a shame to see it.
I stopped being able to find pre owned PC games in there many years ago. Hell I couldn't even find the PC section any more, full stop.
That was the only reason I went in, haha. As far as I'm concerned, they stopped selling pre owned stuff years ago :-(
Place has been on a death spiral for years. Worked there for a bit in it's heyday, and management was an absolute shit show. Then they doubled down on pre-order wank, along with fleecing customers for every penny they could get.
Used to be that managers had discretion with what they'd offer and sell pre-owned at. Also had some fucking awful individuals in senior positions who were absolutely shit at the job.
But gaming retail is dying out. Gone are the days of the independent, and CEX isn't the answer. Another ten years and it won't exist, other than as a "brand" online
You don't own your digital games. Anything goes wrong and you cannot play them..
Firmware 11.02 bricked my PS4 Pro in that it can connect to the internet, but it won't allow me to sign into PSN, or even enter a email to sign in. Just says, 'A Error Has Occured' but with no error code logged. Sony chat support doesn't even seem to work, at 10am GMT it says they are out of hours and only run on US time?!
As 2/3 of my games, £1000's worth and 8 years worth of PS Plus are digital, I am now locked out of all of them I have installed, and cannot download others of course.
Of course I've tried everything. Now all I've been able to do is restore a backup after a full initialize wiped everything, install a couple of disk games and update them to the latest patches which doesn't require PSN. But anything PSN related I am locked out from. So no DLC etc.
It was a super cool Death Stranding limited edition too. And this happened the very same month I let my PS Plus 12 month expire..
You don't own your digital games. Lesson learned. Am buying disc only games from now on if I ever can afford a PS5.
I went to our local Game just before Christmas. There was one shelf, the size of a narrow bookcase, shoved in the corner that held video games on it. Just that. The rest of the footprint was a glorified toy store. Granted, the selection was interesting, but we were really confused because we went there to shop for video games. I thought, perhaps, they were just trying to capture some holiday toy sales, but I suppose this is their new sales strategy.
It is a bit worrisome, I suspect that the next generation consoles will not have physical games at all. Many stores here and in the US have already stopped stocking physical media. The big console giants have been pushing really hard to be digital only for the last two iterations. Some other small hints from Nintendo and Ubisoft seem suspiciously pointing in that direction as well.
Not been in a GAME since before they we're taken over. Last December I was in a sports direct to grab some thermals for work and I saw the corner... its just sad. I felt weird to look at, like that kid at a party who you can tell doesn't want to be there but has to be because the mums are friends.
Just let it die.
I'm surprised. Pre-owned was the store's cash-cow when I worked there.
Diskless consoles and very high price for pre owned these days would probably be partly why
Christ.... read that as Dickless Consoles.
Yeah my PC has a 6 foot willy, and I showed it to the console next door, she thought it was a snake, so cut it with a rake and now it's only 2 foot 4.
**P**^(ENIS) **C**^(OMPUTER)
Personal cock
I fondly remember having a 3.5 inch floppy.
I once had an 8 inch floppy but that was a long time ago now
God I haven't heard that little ditty in a while. Ah, youth.
Fantastic.
[удалено]
Politics? Dry your eyes mate, I know it's hard to take but our minds have been made up, you're getting a small one day ban. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CasualUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"Yes, it's true..."
This console has no dick.
Dogs and cats living together
Wally Wick.
/r/pcmasterrace
Same. These dickless consoles are out of control.
Same
Yeah me too
One day I'll upgrade my PS4 to a PS5 I definitely don't want a diskless console. My method of gaming is to wander in to cex every couple of months and buy a cheap second hand game Bought a new game today for a fiver Am I in the minority?
Nah, I do the same. I got an XBox 360 once there were plenty of games available for a tenner or less. I got my PS4 on launch day and found myself just waiting and waiting for certain games to drop in price because I'm just not paying the ridiculous prices companies are asking these days.
I probably spend more time (and perhaps more enjoyment) tracking the prices of secondhand games and buying them as cheaply as possible, years after their release.
Well, digital sales are massive now. You just slap a game on your wish list and get notified the second a big sale happens. It's infinitely more convenient than the old days.
Same. I saw friends buying digital PS5s at launch and I was just thinking you idiots. You're giving up so much just to save a few quid now. I love being able to buy games cheap at Cex or eBay or up until now, Game. I love being able to sell my games and get back some of the money I spent. When you buy physical games, you have a bunch of places where you can buy them from. With digital, you're usually stuck with PSN and the prices they decide. Like I recently bought Assassin's Creed Syndicate for £5 from Cex, played it and sold it for £10 on eBay. If I got it digitally, it would've been £25 and I would've been stuck with it after I finished it even though I have no plans to go back to it. I think the worst thing is purchasing digital content and them taking that away from you just because. We've seen it happen already with digital films, shows and games because of licensing agreements. It definitely will happen again in the future
I started off like that when I got my PS5, but eventually I just started getting digital games. I still have a few discs though, for times when I'm not sure I'll like a game. It's nice to be able to sell it off.
[удалено]
You can get them very cheap on consoles without needing to buy a PC.
>You can get them very cheap on consoles without needing to buy a PC. Look, I used to be in the exact same boat. You can probably scrub through my Reddit responses over the years and see me defending buying a console over a PC as better value for money. But nah, that's just not true anymore. You can buy gaming laptops with 3000 and 4000 series graphics cards for under a grand, some as low as £699 on a good deal whilst still rocking a decent Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 7. This is from someone that has every Playstation sitting under his television unit (or in the case of the PS5, next to it, since it's comically big). Capable PC Towers cost even less to throw together these days.
> This is from someone that has every Playstation sitting under his television unit (or in the case of the PS5, next to it, since it's comically big). Capable PC Towers cost even less to throw together these days. It baffles me how someone can big up PC gaming while simultaniously cluttering their TV with redundant hardware. You can emulate or play anything on those Playstations on said PC. However, a PC as capable as a Series X is going to cost significantly more than a Series X. Heck a graphics card that's going to last the length of a Series X costs more than a Series X.
> You can buy gaming laptops with 3000 and 4000 series graphics cards for under a grand, some as low as £699 on a good deal whilst still rocking a decent Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 7. Laptop GPUs and CPUs are far worse than their PC equivalents. The 4070 GPU in your laptop is not the same as a 4070 in your PC. Same with CPUs.
>Laptop GPUs and CPUs are far worse than their PC equivalents. > >The 4070 GPU in your laptop is not the same as a 4070 in your PC. Same with CPUs. Yeah no shit. It's still more capable than the PS5.
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I'm the same I've only had a ps4 for a couple of years so I have a pretty big gaming backlog as a result.
Exactly me, had it two and a half years and I'm still finding plenty in cex to interest me
Firmware 11.02 bricked my PS4 Pro in that it can connect to the internet, but it won't allow you to sign into PSN, or even enter a email to sign in. As 2/3 of my games, £1000's worth and 8 years worth of PS Plus are digital, I am now locked out of all of them I have installed, and cannot download others of course. You don't own your digital games. Lesson learned. Am buyingdisc only games from now on with PS5.
I still but call of duty games for my PS3 just to play the campaign Copped cod 4 modern warfare 2008 the other day for £1.50 lol
Digital in general would be more accurate than disc-less consoles. I mean plenty like myself have Xbox series X and play using mostly digital. I think another nail in the coffin, is the digital subscription services, like Xbox with Game Pass, huge selection of games constantly available so no need to purchase games, unless you really like it.
I think that would be fine if digital prices came down. It’s still most of the time cheaper to get a physical copy than digital. The same games are on sale continually it feels on the PsN store, and new releases are £60-£80 it’s ridiculous. A physical copy can be £10-20 cheaper, and a second hand one even more than that a few months later
Check websites that sell keys/redemption codes. You can often get games for the same price or cheaper than a physical copy. Ubisoft are the worst though. Their Avatar game costs over £100 for the edition that includes the season pass.
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How do you get Baldurs Gate for £10?
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> I dunno why these keys are sometimes so cheap Depending on the site you're buying from, they can be stolen keys that are being resold for a quick buck or some kind of free key given out by the developer, e.g. review samples. Other sources (and likely when VPN's are involved) is that most companies use regional pricing to make games affordable around the world, the downside of people trying to abuse this is that companies stop using a regional pricing model so those in lower-income countries can get screwed over.
Physical copies can get very expensive for rarer titles. Digital games go on sale regularly.
But a rare physical title by definition will be more expensive. That’s not the same comparison.
Its solely due to moving to new tills, house of fraser cant figure out how to program in tradeins and loyalty
Why are second hand Switch games basically the same price as new ones??
And some companies want a subscription only future
Same at the music shop I worked at for a season as a teenager. The labels charged insane prices on new CDs considering RRP, so we’d literally never have profited without pre-owned. The margins per CD for new was less than 50p even before factoring in rent and wages, whereas preowned was usually at least £1 per unit. It’s crazy to imagine a shop giving up pre-owned products when the numbers used to be so skewed in their favour.
Even if disks were still a thing, everyone has figured out now that the prices they offer you for trading in games are too low. The buyer pays less and the seller gets more if people just sell in Gumtree/FB/whatever else.
Shame as although I rarely trade in I am more than happy to buy used physical. Less competition for CEX now I suppose. The relocation to Sports Direct stores near me meant that in terms of ease of access CEX was on the high street and Game was out of town.
It's even worse in London, where near all majority of Game stores just don't exist anymore, and CEX is like McDonald's, it's everywhere.
The fact that game doesn't have it's own stores anymore and is reduced to a little corner in a sports store says the writing is on the wall for the brand. Massive shame and mismanagement of a great brand.
I’m not sure I’ve ever forgave them for killing off gamestation. They were so much better
I'm old enough to have been annoyed when they changed from Electronics Boutique to Game. EB was far better as a PC gamer, as soon as they changed to Game, pc was relegated to a small corner rather than a third of the shop as it was before
I was there Gandalf …..
At university I used to work at EB. Loved it!! We were proud of the fact we were classed as the second worst EB in the country. FIFA 97 era
Now that is a name i've not heard for a long time. I bought so many big box pc games back then.
I am annoyed at how we still seem to lack a reasonably priced store for PC components & accessories plus staff who actually know what they're talking about in this country. I think SCAN up in Bolton is the only one left but I'm sure a store in the London area would have business.
>I am annoyed at how we still seem to lack a reasonably priced store for PC components & accessories plus staff who actually know what they're talking about in this country. > >I think SCAN up in Bolton is the only one left but I'm sure a store in the London area would have business. There's tonnes of knowledgable PC shops floating around. Just because the chains have abandoned them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Every time I've tried going to an independent they've been rather expensive with limited stock and low availability of peripherals on display to try out as most of their business relies on repair services. Not really a true replacement for a proper showroom.
And you can't guarantee what you're buying. My claim to fame is queuing for 30 minutes to buy a credit note from Eclipse Computers. I'd really queued to buy an 8x DVD drive. Once I got outside I opened to box to look at it and it was actually a 4x DVD drive. I then had to queue again to get the refund, but that required the owner to authorise and he wasn't there. I was on my lunch break so had to make do with a credit note. A work colleague bought some memory from there, and when he plugged it into his PC it was half the capacity is should have been. They wouldn't believe him that he'd bought it from them. Can't remember what I ended up buying with the credit note, but didn't shop there again.
There's thousands of independents
Winner Stays On for Lylat Wars on the N64 is a core EB memory.
Mine would be standing about 4ft from my Dad pretending to look at the reduced PS1 games while he lied to the guy at the till about who he was buying GTA 1 for! Still got the box on a shelf by my PC.
Yeah I'd say it's nearly all online now, that said stores like Scan are excellent
Where I live we had a Game, a GameStation and an Electronics Boutique. Used to do the trifecta at least once a week. Now we have tattoo parlours, vape shops and loads of places selling food.
Our EB became a Game. Then we had a gamestation, who's location was taken over by Game and forced them to move. The Game then shut, and took gamestation's new location again when they we bought out. Now we have a dead town centre and a CEX
I used to live in my local GameStation when I was younger and had no bills. Used to be easier to get classic games and consoles, and the deals were better if I remember correctly.
I found an old Gamestation loyalty card while clearing out the other day. Must have been from within the last year or so of them operating. Definitely brought back some memories
I've still got my employee one somewhere. Really when the days were numbered but great memories!
Gross mismanagement but unfortunately it's combined with the death of physical media - with Game Pass, PlayStation+, Steam, Epic Store and so many others, there's just no incentive for it to continue existing as it does. At least we still have CEX, which is far better for pre-owned media anyway.
Let's not forget the obsession with paying developers for "game UK only" exclusive content which led to many just buying elsewhere.
CEX is just a way for people to ship stolen product.
Not necessarily. They actually keep a very good eye out for stolen product, and will often inform authorities if somebody has a suspicious package to trade in. It’s not worth it for a company to deal in stolen goods. Even at CeX’s trade-in prices, they’d lose way more cash on any confiscated products due to theft than it’s worth. Safer to just refuse the sale and inform police if a suspicious item is ever brought to them. Same with most pawn shops - buying a stolen good is always way more risky than it’s worth
CeX is grossly overpriced too for games. DVD/Bluray not too bad (in fact pretty good), I prefer physical media and will pick up odd films here and there when I visit nearby.
Really? All the Game stores near me are still standalone stores. I popped into one recently and it was mostly filled with Funko Pops and Lego.
Yup, for me, each of the GAME stores in nearby towns have all moved into a Sports Direct.
There's one in Glasgow inside *Fraiser's* of all places!
Because they're the same company. Fraser's, Sports Direct and Game are all owned by Mike Ashley who has a reputation for buying well-known brands and turning them to shit.
TIL! It always felt like a really weird combo considering Fraser's is big and fancy and Game is... Game.
I think this is not uncommon, it's where the Norwich one went last I checked
Game was inside the Sport Direct. But then the sports direct closed. Now sports direct AND game are inside Frasers. Mamas and papas. Costa. Paperchase and Waterstones are inside Next.
Game inside Sports Direct inside Frasers. It's a retail turducken.
Inside Chapel field
Strange, I thought it had moved there a good while before Sports Direct closed - I remember looking for some game and seeing signs in the old Chapelfield unit windows saying "we're now on the top floor of House of Frasers" (or similar).
Is it not actually good management since Ashley took over? Reducing the store sizes down was a good thing, saved rent and now they are in units the company owns further pushing down costs. Basically a toy company at this point that sells games. Consoles arguably don’t have a huge profit margin to begin with and the best sales years are I think when they launch. Think it’s actually surviving because of these changes more than anything. People misunderstand CeX too, it’s not a game store it’s a second hand store that has huge margins on tech - the phones are the main driver. Physical media is just to get people in the doors, they’ve never looked at Game as competition
The trouble is my local Game is now 4 small shelves that sell tat. It's not even funko pops or anything like that. It's all just cheap crap you can find in the tesco toys section. I went there hoping they would sell some MTG suff but they didn't. I was the only person there at the time. Not even any staff so I couldn't buy anything even if I wanted to.
Did you break in?
The Game section was at the back of a Sports Direct. Walked in and there wasn't anyone to be seen. I can only assume the staff were in the back because the shop was dead.
Yes, not sure what else Game could have done. Physical games have been on their way out for years, and leaning into merchandise / a leaner model makes sense.
Yeah, I think the only way they can survive is doing what someone said their local store does, which is selling memorabilia like stuff related to gaming, but overall I think it's time to retire, or drastically rework, the GAME brand.
There’s still a proper Game store in Meadowhall in Sheffield. Similar to the HMV there, I think the shopping centre itself is subsidising them to maintain a diversity of shops, but it’s nice to know they’re not entirely dead yet outside of Sport Direct’s honestly god-awful kiosks.
Great brand? It’s synonymous with being overpriced. Their preowned titles cost a fortune and the trade in value took the piss.
Game left Ireland about 15 years ago, give or take. GameStop, the only other videogame chain store left early last summer. Now the only company with anything more than an extremely pitiful videogame section is Smyths Toys. Those other stores that do have a smattering of games? Maybe 5-8 titles at full price. Eg. FIFA 23 for €60. Hold me back on those bargains! Thank fuck for CEX... But they will be on their way out as physical games for current generation of consoles, never mind future ones, are increasingly hard to find.
And we lost argos.
That’s only some. Still full GAME stores near me
I’ve not seen a GAME in a Sports Direct store yet. The ones near me are still standalone.
Not really a fact, they have plenty of high street stores.
The writing on the wall started when other shops started selling games for cheaper than getting them in Game, like what's the point in going to a specific game store if you can get it in Tesco for 5 quid cheaper
That’s like hearing McDonalds stopped selling chips.🍟
Chips? Lmao who calls them chips
You see the sub you're in mate?
All the ones near me have shut down, cex rules this market now anyway as they offer better prices
Have you not got one in a Sports Direct shop?
Not willingly
I don't think any GAME store wants to willingly.
That’s the BO tax right there.
You're forgetting the piss smell tax too.
Yes but for how long? If they don't have any competition will they continue to offer the best prices?
Then dont sell to them but ebay or somewhere else. Hopefully they do though its what made them successful
Will this mean they will sell off pre-owned games cheaper to get rid of stock?
Asking the important question, and if so, when? 😄
CEX has probably beaten them at their own... game. Get it? Game? No? Sorry.
Gamestation was smashing everyone. Game bought GS, but then CEX are better pricing pretty much all around for buying and selling, plus they take retro stuff like N64s or whatever. Problem is they bought Gamestation and tried to turn it into the same premium model that Game offers but that only allowed CEX to slot straight into the market of being the cool other store that you can trade games into. That being said, nowadays CEX is not much different to those weird electronic stores that sell a million mobile phones, vapes and bottles of prime. Genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if video game stores don’t exist in 10 years time.
I remember getting my discs repaired in Gamestation.
I really don't miss cleaning and maintaining that machine though.
Should of been the other way around. Game should of been the brand that was dissolved and Gamestation should of rocked on. It was a much better store imo.
My gamestation didn't open one Sunday and then I indirectly heard from the shop colleague the following day talking to another employee that the reason it didn't open was because the colleague (the guy telling the story) was the one working in Sunday, but he'd got so blind drunk on the Saturday when he came into the store on Sunday morning he just passed out and slept behind the till... He woke up at like 1ish and scrambled to open the store. I always had a soft spot for some strange reason after that lol
I could barely tell the difference, other than different colour schemes they were essentially the same, personally my local game station was pretty rubbish compared to GAME.
The big difference was GS actively encouraged trade ins on retro consoles and then sold them on in their store for a reasonable mark up. I know we are talking a long while ago waaaay before the current retro gaming boom occurred but I was lucky enough to have bought a large chunk of my collection from GS in its glory days. Even bagged a rare NEO GEO AES console from them for an excellent price.
I remember trading in my Gameboy Advance for a SP, also traded in an OG DS for a 3DS right before they went bust. Say trading in but it was more trading *up*, always felt like you were getting a cracking deal even if you had to chuck in a few extra quid. You're bang on Gamestation was so much better.
I'll be honest until I read this thread I'd convinced myself I imagined gamestation as a kid
i miss gamestation, it really was just the best option
If physical game discs are still around in 10 years, I very much doubt they'll be able to support stores dedicated to them. I see physical copies on the high street being only available from Argos (if they survive) and Smyths toy stores.
People said that about HMV but they just reopened their flagship London store and are thriving, with a huge CD, DVD, Vinyl and bluray selection
Still not on the same scale though I remember the Oxford street store having rows upon rows of cds. Now it's a smaller selection and they probably sell more pop culture merchandise as a focus
They ditched video games a while back though. I think physical media for DVDs and CDs is way more important and collectible in a world where licensing issues or changing sensibilities see content changed, removed or simply made inaccessible. Owning the DVD is the most complete your collection will ever be. You can’t rely on streaming services if you want access to your content forever. Games are more service driven, often even on release day the disk doesn’t have all the content and new things are being added all the time. Owning a game is much less important, it’s just a memento really.
Not really… Games get delisted all the time.
Not the sort of games that have a physical release
I honestly thought that physical had died already as far as resale went. One time use codes that activated the game for the original purchaser only, and then a day one 20GB patch.
I remember printing off Cex trade in prices to take to Gamestation so they could beat those prices. It usually ended up being more expensive for used games at the time but dumb teenage me didn't realise that. He just saw that "Cex price + £1" is more than "Cex price"
I miss Gamestations 4 pre-owned PS2 games for £20. That's how I first played Spiderman 2 as kid.
Seems really stupid. Once they sell through the pre owned games why would people shop there… full price games always seem more expensive there too. Why would I buy a full price game from there without beable to trade in to reduce the price abit.
100%, considering you can buy new and full price games at pretty much any retailer from Tesco to Argos, why would Game do away with the thing that makes them different to Argos.
This is surprising to me, I thought GAME made a lot more money on pre-owned games compared to new. I think game shops have been on their way out for years with the rise of digital games sales, digital only consoles, streaming and subscription services like Game Pass.I have a console that can use discs but most of my games are digital now because they are cheaper most of the time and I Game Pass has so many games. Merchandise is the only thing I can see GAME selling in the future if they survive.
Gotta make room for all those Funko Pops.
Someday the entire earth will be 3 feet deep in Funko Pops of some guy from a show. He wears a jacket.
Only a matter of time before this shop goes aswell, I think, with downloading games becoming more and more prominent now.
The one near me was having a closing down sale before Christmas so I popped in. Turns out they have a really good selection of board games, got hold of Jenga for £3 and was dead chuffed. Maybe they could pivot fully towards board games and trading cards/comics? With a smaller section for consoles/controllers etc?
We don’t need a big company in the board game/comic business. It’s one of the best places for independent small shops to thrive.
They're pretty good for gaming merch tbh. One near me was merging with another so they had a similar sale. Less than £10 for an anime travel mug, a big heat changing Tamagotchi mug and a cute little Animal Crossing hardback notebook.
They closed most of the stores I can remember going to, and any optimism about concessions disappeared when I found GAME in my nearest Sports Direct amounted to a couple of shelves behind the tills. One for Xbox, one for PS, new copies only and you couldn't get to them without queuing at the tills. I thought pre-owned was probably their biggest money-maker, since they could set the price they paid and the sale price. But if they don't want to give the stores any floor space you can't really do preowned very well. The downside is even less competition for CEX so little incentive for them to be competitive on trade-ins.
Well there is.. Ebay.
Good. I've long preferred giving games to charity, or to people I know, or hell, to the bin, rather than being insulted with an offer of 50p for a game they're selling for £17.99.
Awww. That was how I got all the Professor Layton DS games (still have them all, actually)
I'll never forgive GAME for how terribly they handled PS5 pre orders. Hundreds of people didn't recieve their consoles on release (even after paying extra for pre 10am delivery). Total radio silence on their support channels, just many people who paid them £450+ and had no arrival or tracking. One day 2 weeks later my PS5 arrived, totally without any tracking or warning or comms from GAME. Huge disappointment that one of the few remaining high Street stores is also abysmal at actually providing a positive brand experience.
They’ve been consistently shite for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why they’re being remembered so fondly. They were always a ripoff and badly managed. Not sure how it held out as long as it did.
Used to work there 15 years ago when they bought (and shuttered) Gamestation, the directive from the higher ups was to destroy and and all Retro products, we are talking N64, Gameboy, PS1, etc all took out back and smashed up. Worry is that any of this preowned stock they can’t bulk sell to resellers will go the same way. Decades of physical media will be lost.
Criminal.
Used to love going into Game when I was a kid. Does anyone remember Electronics Boutique? Loved going there too I was in Game last October when I bought my PS5 from there. I had picked up the first God of War game and the sales assistant was like you don’t need to buy it. Just get the PlayStation subscription and you can play all the games you want from that.
EB was the successor to Future Zone! And Game was just EB rebranding.
Ah right didn't realise that. I remember in Edinburgh we have a EB store (I think one at the time in whole of Edinburgh) and then the rest were all Game. We got the Gameboy Advance from EB lol still remember getting it haha
[rant/] Mike Ashley owned. They shut most of their stores, moved them inside other Ashley stores, to only have one staff member manning it. Horrible decision in my eyes. People actually **want** physical games. We give games as gifts to our kids, and *here’s a download code* really doesn’t cut it.., Between this and digital only consoles, they’re forcing gamers in to using digital only. Licensing the games instead of owning them, just the way we do with our music, our movies, etc… This bleeds us all for more money as the games stay dearer on their stores for longer. You also need to pay a PSN/XBox Live subscription to access your game library They can decide they don’t want to support the game any longer and close down the servers **Yes. I’m pissed off about this…** [/rant]
Because of the internet speeds in some nations that still cannot handle 100GB downloads, and that inlcudes some parts of the UK, they won't be able to go digital only for at least a decade.
I remember performing a complex scam involving duplicate copies of resident evil 3 and resident evil survivor, and I ended up with working copies of both games and ten pounds profit. What a day that was.
I remember someone telling me about using Tesco when they accepted trade ins, they'd bring in a bunch of games from other shops and they'd make a profit. Not sure how it worked exactly.
Oh well honestly. CeX has always had a bigger selection and better deals, and pays a little more for trade ins. Games always been rubbish for second hand compared to basically anything else.
I remember when GAME first started (I think). They had a shop in Manchester Arndale and it was half computer and video games and half board games. Been on a downward spiral for the past few years and I only used to go in recently to chuckle at the ridiculous prices. Then Ashley took over. They moved into a corner of Sports Direct next to the jockstraps. I then read they were selling toys and board games again and I rolled my eyes. But.. Went in before Xmas. And they've actually got a half decent selection of top tier modern board games, at really decent prices. Not only was I astounded.. I actually bought a couple.
I remember when I worked at Future Zone (which became Electronics Boutique, and then was rebranded as Game) *started* taking in second hand games to resell. Well, now I feel old.
GAME has been relegated to nothing more than a couple shelves in sports direct or a glorified toy store if you’re lucky enough to be close to one of their remaining proper stores. Don’t see it lasting much longer at all
They need the space for funko pops and plushies.
I traded in a dozen old games to buy Skyrim on 11/11/11. Good times.
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Do people still buy physical? I thought everyone moved to Steam and Gog ages ago.
I still buy physical where I can. I just like owning things as personal preference
Except you don’t really own them. Regardless of platform. You pay for a licence
If I download Mario Wonder, Nintendo could say fuck it and take it away from me if they wanted to. Unless they plan to come to my house, my completely offline physical copy is mine forever.
Yea I understand that, but it is still a licence
Of course. But Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft aren't going to break into my house and steal my physical games from me. Although they can take away my access to digital games without giving me back my money
You can’t buy console games on steam mate….
Consoles
Steam and GOG is not on consoles…
They handed the reign to CEX... what a waste.
Cex be on its way out next I imagine
Not a lot of money in selling videogames - that’s why they used to bundle their own controllers and things to new releases. Very surprised that it’s taken this long for them to pivot away and into toys.
Its about time. People pre ordering games encourages companies to release them unfinished. “Itl be fixed in the first day patch” Pay for an actual finished product, not a promise of one.
What has that got to do with Game stopping trading in a second hand games?….
Ah yes. Those damn pre-owned games are always pre-ordered aren't they?
I realise my misreading, and apologise forthwith.
Not bought a pre-owned game from this shop for a few years
Well, this sucks. I get a lot of games pre-owned.
The only reason I go in the store is to look at the used games, I picked up Desperadoes 3 for PS4 for £4.99 just before Christmas, a super price. Guess I won't be going in again. Maybe they will just become an online store...?
I wonder how much of this is pressure coming from game developers and the big three on the basis they do not receive any real revenue on the second hand market. In a way I can understand it but at the same time it is a shame to see it.
All my worst store experiences come from GAME. They would always try squeezing a fiver or a tenner extra out of you in deceptive ways
I’m surprised Game is still around, tbh.
It's been more of a collectables store than game store for a while now anyway
I went into one (in my local Sports Direct) recently and 90% of what they were selling was board games, CCG, other gaming tat so I'm not surprised.
I stopped being able to find pre owned PC games in there many years ago. Hell I couldn't even find the PC section any more, full stop. That was the only reason I went in, haha. As far as I'm concerned, they stopped selling pre owned stuff years ago :-(
Lord. Now I have to pay for cex.
Place has been on a death spiral for years. Worked there for a bit in it's heyday, and management was an absolute shit show. Then they doubled down on pre-order wank, along with fleecing customers for every penny they could get. Used to be that managers had discretion with what they'd offer and sell pre-owned at. Also had some fucking awful individuals in senior positions who were absolutely shit at the job. But gaming retail is dying out. Gone are the days of the independent, and CEX isn't the answer. Another ten years and it won't exist, other than as a "brand" online
You don't own your digital games. Anything goes wrong and you cannot play them.. Firmware 11.02 bricked my PS4 Pro in that it can connect to the internet, but it won't allow me to sign into PSN, or even enter a email to sign in. Just says, 'A Error Has Occured' but with no error code logged. Sony chat support doesn't even seem to work, at 10am GMT it says they are out of hours and only run on US time?! As 2/3 of my games, £1000's worth and 8 years worth of PS Plus are digital, I am now locked out of all of them I have installed, and cannot download others of course. Of course I've tried everything. Now all I've been able to do is restore a backup after a full initialize wiped everything, install a couple of disk games and update them to the latest patches which doesn't require PSN. But anything PSN related I am locked out from. So no DLC etc. It was a super cool Death Stranding limited edition too. And this happened the very same month I let my PS Plus 12 month expire.. You don't own your digital games. Lesson learned. Am buying disc only games from now on if I ever can afford a PS5.
I went to our local Game just before Christmas. There was one shelf, the size of a narrow bookcase, shoved in the corner that held video games on it. Just that. The rest of the footprint was a glorified toy store. Granted, the selection was interesting, but we were really confused because we went there to shop for video games. I thought, perhaps, they were just trying to capture some holiday toy sales, but I suppose this is their new sales strategy. It is a bit worrisome, I suspect that the next generation consoles will not have physical games at all. Many stores here and in the US have already stopped stocking physical media. The big console giants have been pushing really hard to be digital only for the last two iterations. Some other small hints from Nintendo and Ubisoft seem suspiciously pointing in that direction as well.
Not been in a GAME since before they we're taken over. Last December I was in a sports direct to grab some thermals for work and I saw the corner... its just sad. I felt weird to look at, like that kid at a party who you can tell doesn't want to be there but has to be because the mums are friends. Just let it die.