An Xbox Dilemma

[Dread Advocate]

P.S: Now, as usually happens in my life, the price will drop a lot because I've just bought it...

 

Something similar happened to me. I got my 360 back when they were still on the Arcade, Pro, and Elite models. I got mine about a month before they discontinued the Pro model and dropped the Elite's price $100. Disheartening, yes, but my 360 has lasted me a good four/five years.

[Alexrd]

I meant, 100aud to 110aud new, at least 360-ps3 games tend to cost that much at release, at full price.

 

Now that's expensive. They sell games here at around half of that price (new releases) and I still think it's too much.

 

Something similar happened to me.

 

It's our lot in life...

[Lynk Former]

Yeah... prices for a lot of electronics and digital media suck down here in Australia. Companies like to bump up the price down here.

[Dread Advocate]

High prices and every other game is banned or heavily censored in Australia. Gee willakers. What's the justification for it all?

[Lynk Former]

Every other game? That's probably overestimating it a little They can ban/censor as many games as they want... though in reality it's not that many... further in reality, I still get the uncensored versions of those games anyway if they're worth getting so it's no big deal for me. It just stops me from putting my money down at an Australian retailer, that's all.

 

As for the pricing... companies like to find any exploit they can to bump up the price as high as they can make them. The government down here has been trying to get companies to lower their prices recently and have launched an inquiry as to why they're doing this. Don't know what will come of it... but it's clear this doesn't have anything to do with Australia and more to do with companies simply knowing they can get away with ripping us off.

[DarthParametric]

It's a holdover from the pre-digital age. Physical goods do cost more to sell down here, as you have to ship them half way across the world, then distribute them internally here across a large country with a tiny population. The exchange rate also played a part. Historically the Oz dollar was generally fairly weak, down around US65-70c or so. It's only in more recent times when the US economy tanked that it made some gains, even passing parity for a while (it has since slumped again).

 

Seeing as there were established price points for certain goods, software companies saw an easy way to cash in by keeping high prices on digital versions. There's no justification there. We've reached a point now where circumvention tricks like grey importing and using VPNs, etc. are mainstream enough that the government has finally taken notice. I suspect their motivation is probably driven more by potential lost tax revenue than the financial welfare of their citizens however.

[Alexrd]

It arrived today and will try it tomorrow. Apparently they didn't charge for it yet and it has been over 10 days since I bought it. Did I just got an Xbox 360 for free?

 

EDIT: Nevermind, after almost 3 weeks, they charged...