GAME in serious trouble

amacachi

efla wrote: »

Passionately hate this, and have never returned since.

Dropping 45+ should unconditionally guarantee you an untainted fresh copy (although this happened in Smyth's last week when I bought the MGS collection).

That's why if I'm buying games in person it's from Argos.

calex71

amacachi wrote: »

That's why if I'm buying games in person it's from Argos.

I was going to say it's been a while since I had the pleasure of cracking a new seal on a game with my fingernail but I actually got to do it last week with a copy of SSX bought from HMV WHich is unusual for them too.

starviewadams

MagicSean wrote: »

Actually no. I live in an area with no access to landline broadband. Eircom have no plans to upgrade my local exchange and will provide no reason for this. They effectively control the size of the broadband market. I get broadband via a small dish on my roof. It's expensive and prone to interruption but I can get good speed. i think he next big change will come when Sky introduce their broadband services. If people can get their tv and broadband through their satellite provider Eircom will likely take a big hit, especially when you look at the proposed scale of Sky on demand services. The introduction of Sky Broadband will hopefully give Eircom the kick up the arse they need.

Sky will just be re-selling Eircom's services,the same way that Vodafone/Smart/Magnet etc do now.So if you can't get DSL now or if your DSL is crap,Sky entering the Irish BB market is not going to improve your situation unfortunately.

The only thing that will improve it is when someone buys Eircom and actually invests money in upgrading their out of date infrastructure.That or if UPC decide to cable your town/village,which seeing as they aren't finished upgrading Dublin yet,is fairly unlikely in the medium term.

Jimbob 83

Im in the same boat, using a old white O2 dongle, can't get phoneline broadband but my cuz literally 2 fields across and 400m down the road can lol, only in Ireland tbh.

Ostrom

I usually buy from my local xtravision; a friend works there so I dont have to endure the upselling ****e (i.e. gamestop / game - which seems to have gotten worse of late).

Mr. K

calex71 wrote: »

I was going to say it's been a while since I had the pleasure of cracking a new seal on a game with my fingernail but I actually got to do it last week with a copy of SSX bought from HMV WHich is unusual for them too.

My mind is a little bit broken; I only buy sealed games. I hate having something I've paid €40-50 for pawed or scuffed. If it's sealed, it's pretty much guaranteed to be perfect.

Game's stock were always sealed, that's one of the reasons I bought from them!

cloud493

My friend in England text me, said he went to Game today for the PS3 reductions, got

Battalion Wars 2 £1.98
The Conduit £2.98
Killzone 2 47p
Infamous 2 £7.98
Bulletstorm £2.98

Not bad at all.

Bubblefett

I went into Game today with the OH cause we heard there was a big traded sale (like said above) but we didn't see any particularly out of the ordinary discounts. Seemed like a normal sale to me (kinda glad, really don't want game closing)
We did clear off the €20 we'd saved up on the game loyality card. In case they do close down don't want to loose that

downwithpeace

I wouldn't be happy to see them close, not that I buy much from them but they're the only place I know of that have a reasonable (If shrinking) PC selection. When I do buy stuff it's on sale or a non new release for a reasonable price, new games are just to expensive when a 2-3 day wait can save €10+ by using Amazon.

readyletsgo

All the pre-owned games in game in Ilac were at low prices, but nothing of interest.
Shop was empty and I was in there for a good 20 mins checking xbox and 3ds stuff just to make sure.
I did see copies of Twilight Princess for €12 if anyones interested.

RobbingBandit

Preowned games are no longer 3 for 2. Nothing great in Tallaght.

super_furry

Got Wolfenstein on 360 for €4 but that was it.

Chris_Heilong

Just been there and got some oldies very cheap, Devil may cry 4 €2.99, Prey €1.99, ghost recon €2.99, prince of Persia €2.98 and lost planet 2 for €6:D

readyletsgo

Aww! Didnt see any of these games in the Ilac one :-(

cloud493

Any good PS3 ones?

Sierra Oscar

I guess the number of brick and mortar retailers getting into financial difficulties can be linked to the rise of digital distribution. It is a shame really, I do not necessarily want a market which exists entirely of online retailers.

WildCardDoW

jill_valentine wrote: »

I have bad news for you. Friends of mine have worked for all those chains, and I can tell you for a fact that this was universally common practice in Smyths, whereas it's a firing offence in the other chains.

Not alone that, Smyths "strip" almost all their stock, put the real box on the shelf and then shrinkwrap the disc to the manual, inevitably scuffing some discs. Neither Game or Gamestop do that. Unlike Smyths, where the box on the shop shelf is the box you'll get your game in, Game and Gamestop use "dummy" boxes to represent the title for display with a few token real boxes, so that they can keep as much of their stock sealed as mint as possible. That is why they can lose track of what games displayed on the floor are out of stock.

I can honestly say it doesn't bother me at all, but just so you're not under any illusions.

As I work in a Smyths branch I thought I'ld offer my two cents, I've never taken a game home and played it and then returned it selling as new, I have bought games and traded them in, sometimes to Smyths sometimes to a competitor, like everyone else it depends where I can get the best value (since I work there it is commonly Smyths ).

Smyths like most other retailers get plenty of dummy inserts in and these are used for all major releases, the situations where they aren't used is a few months down the line when they've been thrown out and a live copy has to be stripped. However this happens as much as it does in Game/Gamestop!

Can't be sure when your friend last worked in Smyths, but the stripping of games when it isn't required is frowned upon by HO! (although we were forced to strip half of our Marion Party 9 stock as we hadn't received the inserts in time) but this was swapped out fairly quickly.

Trust me, Smyths hate stripping games more than you do buying stripped games!

Cherry_Cola

Are half the deals that are going on in the UK happening in Ireland yet? Today they have offers on pre-owned consoles and apparently there are some really cheap MS points too.

Anyone spot any decent 360 game offers?

Deano7788

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/exclusive-no-disc-drive-for-next-xbox/092534

According to MCV, Microsoft has informed partners that the next X-box is not going to include a disc drive, although apparently it will be compatible with a card based storage format. If this is true, they're clearly going to be heavily pushing digital distribution, which would be bad news for retailers.

Also, cards would be a lot more expensive to manufacture than discs, so they'd be a lot more expensive to buy in, which could be a further deterrent against buying physical media.

Varik

Deano7788 wrote: »

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/exclusive-no-disc-drive-for-next-xbox/092534

According to MCV, Microsoft has informed partners that the next X-box is not going to include a disc drive.

The briefings have been issued under what MCV’s source describes as “the strictest NDA” they have ever encountered and have ever fully ignored.

Zeouterlimits

Honestly I'd find that hard to believe. Would be axing any form of BC.
Huge mis-step when they still have big titles coming like Halo 4 and GTAV that people will be playing for years.

Blowfish

Zeouterlimits wrote: »

Honestly I'd find that hard to believe. Would be axing any form of BC.

Not necessarily. Again, Steam has done this already. If you have a physical copy of a game that's also on Steam, you can just stick in the license key and it'll add it to your collection and download and install it for you, without you ever actually needing the CD/DVD.

It's certainly possible for Microsoft to do the same. Whether they are likely to though is a whole other question.

ShadowHearth

****... one more reason to stick with PC gaming.

MS wants to monopolise all the sales. how cute... :rolleyes:

i wonder how do developers feel about this? i guess they will be happy as no second hand sales...

Zeouterlimits

Blowfish wrote: »

Not necessarily. Again, Steam has done this already. If you have a physical copy of a game that's also on Steam, you can just stick in the license key and it'll add it to your collection and download and install it for you, without you ever actually needing the CD/DVD.

Which is planned for in advance, this hasn't been.

gizmo

ShadowHearth wrote: »

****... one more reason to stick with PC gaming.

MS wants to monopolise all the sales. how cute... :rolleyes:

i wonder how do developers feel about this? i guess they will be happy as no second hand sales...

How would MS be monopolising sales via a switch in media?

While there are more options available to them in terms of locking down second hand sales with a move to such a format, with no evidence of this so far, it's no different than what Sony have done with the Vita.

super_furry

ShadowHearth wrote: »

****... one more reason to stick with PC gaming.

MS wants to monopolise all the sales. how cute... :rolleyes:

i wonder how do developers feel about this? i guess they will be happy as no second hand sales...

But that's pretty much what Valve are already doing on PC. If anything Microsoft would be hoping to follow in the footsteps of the PC model.

ShadowHearth

gizmo wrote: »

How would MS be monopolising sales via a switch in media?

While there are more options available to them in terms of locking down second hand sales with a move to such a format, with no evidence of this so far, it's no different than what Sony have done with the Vita.

well, do they remove any sort of drive or they just going to make games different format? ( back to cartriges? )

i though they mentioned those SD type cards just like some sort of external memory, not an replacement for disc drives?

i presume such memory really went far! i still remember floppy 1.3mb discs

my bad if i miss understood. i thought they just want to make ut pure digital distribution.

ShadowHearth

super_furry wrote: »

But that's pretty much what Valve are already doing on PC. If anything Microsoft would be hoping to follow in the footsteps of the PC model.

yes valve is doing it on pc, but lets be honest, how many games have you bought on release date on steam? i love steam, but its prices are only good durring the sales. imagine if you cant buy a game on amazon or gamestop and enter cd-key in steam and left only with monopolised option to buy games from steam. So no more bargain alerts my friend as the only place to get games - MS shop.

Blowfish

super_furry wrote: »

But that's pretty much what Valve are already doing on PC. If anything Microsoft would be hoping to follow in the footsteps of the PC model.

Valve aren't doing this on PC. Valve have a dominant market position, but it's not a monopoly. Gamersgate, D2D, Origin, GoG, direct download and physical purchases are all possible distribution choices.

If Microsoft moved to Digital Download only for the new console, you'd have no other choice but to buy games directly from them with XBL. This is exactly what they would love to see as it would bump their margin significantly. Whether it constitutes a monopoly or not is debatable though as technically their competition is Sony/Nintendo and not the other distributors of their games.

gizmo

ShadowHearth wrote: »

well, do they remove any sort of drive or they just going to make games different format? ( back to cartriges? )

i though they mentioned those SD type cards just like some sort of external memory, not an replacement for disc drives?

i presume such memory really went far! i still remember floppy 1.3mb discs

my bad if i miss understood. i thought they just want to make ut pure digital distribution.

Oh god no, if they do switch to some sort of solid state card storage it will be in the Vita vein. There is no way in a million billion years the next generation will be DD only.

An interesting side effect to moving away from a DVD/BR drive is that it would impact their entertainment capability. Sure they still support Zune/Lovefilm/Netflix but there are still plenty of people out there who use traditional media with their consoles. Unlike Sony, however, they're not backing any particular horse when it comes to physical media so perhaps they don't care?