UK retailers slash Rock Band prices
- Posted May 27th, 2008 at 15:58 EDT by
- 2,418 views
- 11 Comments
When EA announced the confirmation for the price of not only the game but for the entire Rock Band bundle, the UK rose up in protest. Scheduled to retail for almost double in comparison to the North American bundle, UK PlayStation owners were outraged with the pricing. It seems as though retailers have taken note of this issue and have decided to cut the suggested retail price by £40.
Play.com is leading the pack of discounted retailers alongside HMV and GameStation. Play is featuring the complete instrument bundle for the price of £99.99 while HMV is sitting at £159.99 and GameStation with £149.99. Obviously, this is in regards to the XBOX 360 version of the game, but with the PlayStation 3 installment launching a bit down the stretch, we'd imagine that same pricing policy would be taken into consideration.
We'll keep you posted if the same route is taken for the PS3 version as well.
Comments
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Emo-Mercenary |
Clarky-132- 5:28pm BST - May 27th, 2008
- 2
When is the PS3 version being released? And why wasn't it released at the same time as the Xbox 360 version? I want this game, but not able to Import it from America, =[ .
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Paranoimia |
Paranoimia- 5:54pm BST - May 27th, 2008
- 3
According to the latest OPM UK:
"The final pricing is actually decided by three parties - EA, who's marketing and distributing Rock Band, publisher MTV Games and developer Harmonix. We sought comment from all three. EA's response was a polite but firm 'no comment'. Harmonix has, at time of press, not responded, while Jeff Castaneda from MTV Games directed us towards Harmonix response on the Rock Band website forum.
"In the message, Greg LoPiccolo, vice president of product development, cites numerous reasons for the high price, from shipping costs of the oversized box to variations in the profit mark up between US and UK retailers. He also blames our 17.5% VAT, but that hardly accounts for a 100% mark-up.
"As for the decision to separate the instrument and game, the peripherals are made in China and the software in Europe. According to LoPiccolo combining the two would require extra shipping and facilities, pushing the cost even higher. The sad truth is, with demand likely to far outstrip supply, they can charge what they like for now."
Personally, I have no interest in these games at all, but my suggestion would be if you object to the price, don't buy the game, no matter how much you want it. As long as people keep paying these inflated prices, companies will keep charging them.
Besides, what LoPiccolo says makes no sense. The game is made in Europe, and yet he says that it would require extra shipping and facilities!? So... it costs more to ship a game made in Europe to Europe than to ship it to the USA? Hmm...
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Alpha2
- 7:33pm BST - May 27th, 2008
- 4
there some sense in what he's saying about shipping because you;d have to figure when they make the US bundles they have someplace to store the peripheral boxes while they get the games in to place them in the boxes here. In the UK the might have to make special arrangements to store the boxes and await the games. This way they get the boxes on the shelves immidiately rather than the BS they did here where we had the stand alone game sitting on shelves for 8 months and you couldnt do anything with it other than the vocal game because ther were NOT peripherals at all to buy.
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lurkingshadow89 |
DEATH555666- 10:25pm BST - May 27th, 2008
- 7
thats great mabe it's time to go get myself a copie before the new guitar hero comes out.
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playstnlvr |
playstnlvr- 11:26pm BST - May 27th, 2008
- 8
Wow, I wouldn't pay that much for a video game if it wiped my butt and gave me professional quality massages. This is like when the PS3 first came out, except this time we're talking about something that is overpriced, not something that was an incredible bargain.
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Dave-The-Rave |
Dave-The-Rave- 6:27am BST - May 28th, 2008
- 10
Still a rip off and I saw the pricing issue coming a mile off !!
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mayhemmusic |
mayhemmusic / stonepig / philmadog1970- 1:05pm BST - May 31st, 2008
- 11
hmmm saw it in Zavvi this afternoon for £180 game £50 instrument pack £130..... the price is a joke but the biggest joke is still the "Timed" exclusive period on the 360 that stinks, this bl00dy game has been out for 6 months on the PS3 in the US we PS3 owners in the UK are now looking at August or September..... well I put it to you guys on here from the EU that we stick it to EA and boycott this game completely and wait until GH WT comes out , why the he11 should we pay double for a game that will be virtually a year old by the time we see it.
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