The state of Video Game affairs in Canada.

Ever since the inception of the $69.99 price point for video games here in Canada, I’ve been very loud about how we the Canadian consumers are getting ripped off. This is very evident if you walk into your local Best Buy, which I did on the weekend. You will see that some game pre-orders are 59.99, others are 64.99, and then you have most at the 69.99 Price point. Nobody has officially come out and said that the price hike is due to the exchange rate, and there is only online speculation, which is sound and logical. Personally I think the 69.99 price hike it is due to greed as there is no consistency in a price point between software publishers, aaaaand a 10% exchange rate difference should yield a price closer to $65 not $70. Funny that when the US dollar was trading at less than the Canadian dollar we were still paying the same as the US.

More recently the PS4 hardware price was raised and went up from 399.99 to 449.99, an additional $10 profit for Sony per PS4 sold in Canada. The Xbox One however maintained it’s original price. A few weeks ago Microsoft announced a Kinect-less Xbox One that will be selling at the 399.99 price point. I was curious to see what the price would be for this in Canada. To my dismay I learned that this Kinect-less Xbox One can be pre-ordered on the Best Buy Canada site for 399.99 as well. Interesting that a hardware manufacturer is willing to take a slight hit on their hardware but the majority of software publishers have actually increased their profits beyond the point of the exchange rate. Sorry it’s not interesting, it’s very greedy. I would like to thank Microsoft for showing us Canadian gamers some love. Just like they did when they lowered the 360 price in Canada first.

Right now I’m going to pick on a single game that I have a slight problem with, Wolfenstein The New Order. One thing that irks me about a title like the new Wolfenstein, is that it does not have any multiplatyer, online or co-op game play aspect to it, yet they warrant charging 69.99 for the software. This game at best should be 49.99, even with the 10% exchange increase… but I digress. To be honest I was going to pick this title up when I learned of it, until I also learned that it is a purely single player game and that it would be selling at $69.99 CAD.

So the question everyone should be asking is, does a 10% exchange rate difference warrant a 17% price hike? And will the price drop once the exchange rate balances out?

For your consideration, below is a historic look at the USD to CAD exchange rate. Ranging from 1990 to now. See that huge spike prior to January 2000, this is where I purchased Turok 2 for the N64 and taxes in it cost me about $120, ouch.

On the other hand PC prices are more forgiving. This is partly due to the fact that Steam and others like Greenman Gamin deal in US currency. Dealing in US currency reflects the true pricing and not this inflated cash grab.

There are ways to get around this ridiculous pricing on the Xbox One. I’m not sure if this is possible on the PS4, but let me know if it is. If you buy digital on Xbox Live and use PayPal to pay for your purchases, you can temporarily switch your Xbox One to the US region, purchase the game and then switch back to your Canadian region. Online users have reported this as working. This way you pay what the game is actually worth, except for Wolfenstein.

This brings me to another point, why the heck are we paying full price for video games sold to us digitally? Games that have no resale value and do not impact sales of new software. Yes we have to consider the bandwidth and server storage, but come on we have effectively eliminated the need to print a cover, press a disc, mould a case, ship to a distributor, ship to a retail store, have to travel to said store…. etc. You get the point. So why is digital the same price as physical, it makes no logical sense. An incentive in a form of a discount for digital distribution would be most welcome, and would push digital over physical.

I understand the 64.99 price hike but going to 69.99 is just plain greedy. I’m not sure who is setting these prices, weather it’s the distributors or the retailers. One thing I know for sure is that the Gaming industry is run by dinosaurs that do not know how to adapt to new and emerging technologies and like the music industry is driven by corporate greed not profit.