Rip off NZ retailers?

16/06/2011

I’m to use this post to track the prices of console games in New Zealand, compared with the rest of the civilised World. I have an idea that they’re overpriced due to lack of stores… lets see what my web research shows

For my 1st example I’m to use Child Of Eden, as it just released today & no store in Auckland has seen it!
I’ll show the list price & discounted price for each region I can find the data for.

US Amazon
Currency: USD, List Price: $49.99, Sale Price: $47.99, 59.81 New Zealand dollars

EB Games NZ
Currency: NZD, List Price: $109.99, Sale Price: $N/A Out of Stock

Mighty Ape
Currency: NZD, List Price: $109.99, Sale Price: $99.99 24th June

DungeonCrawl
Currency: AUD, List Price: $88, Sale Price: $67.90, 89.08 New Zealand dollars

Gameplay UK
Currency: GBP, List Price: $49.99, Sale Price: £28.99, 58.38 New Zealand dollars

That sample will do for starters.
I want to play some games this evening so I’ll just do a quick & dirty comparison via google of the cheapest price (sale price) for each country, as shown above.

So it doesn’t seem like it’s just NZ but Australia as well that suffers from inflated prices.
I think I’ll pick this game up from the UK, but I’m not going to leave the investigation there.

I’ll build up a database of stores & prices & write some emails asking questions of why the prices are so high… meanwhile I’ll pick up my game from Gameplay or Amazon (pity they don’t deliver to nz!)