Some interesting details have developed for Batman: Arkham Asylum due to be released next Tuesday. The short and long of it is, it should be priced at $38.83 when it launches 8/25/2009. How does a standard $69.99 game experience such a drastic price drop? There's the interesting story.
The rumour is that this whole thing started with a Best Buy pricing error. From there, it moved to Wal-Mart. They may have started with a mistake, but Wal-Mart seems to have decided to run with it in order to compete with the trade deals offered by my store. Wal-Mart has since started heavily advertising the new price in-store, and one customer has even told me the ads have shown up on XBox Live. Our store has to follow suit.
Why? Won't my store, and the company that owns it, be taking a huge loss? HELL YES. All stores make a minimal margin on new games (and by marginal I mean within the margin of $1 to $2). Selling Batman for $30 less than suggested retail price means a literal $30 loss on every copy sold. The problem is perception. The company I work for deems that if it is seen to not provide deals at least as good, if not better, than the competition at any given time, it may lose future customers. Take a loss now, keep a customer forever (or at least for another week; consumers are justifiably fickle).
So, Batman: Arkham Asylum will be pretty damn cheap when it comes out, thanks to pricing errors and anti-competitive practices. Reap the rewards, folks! And seriously, get Batman. It looks freaking sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment