{"id":99330,"date":"2016-07-20T17:55:50","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T15:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=99330"},"modified":"2016-07-20T18:59:59","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T16:59:59","slug":"massive-video-game-price-shake-up-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/99330-massive-video-game-price-shake-up-in-south-africa","title":{"rendered":"Massive video game price shake-up in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African retail pre-order prices for Battlefield 1 have appeared on\u00a0Raru, with the game set to sell for around R890 <\/a><\/strong>on PC, and R999 <\/a><\/strong>on consoles.<\/p>\n

This means that it will be significantly cheaper to buy digital versions of the game through Origin, PlayStation Network (PSN), and Xbox Live (XBL).<\/p>\n

Battlefield 1 costs R599.99<\/strong> on Origin<\/strong>, R829<\/strong> on PSN<\/strong>, and R799<\/strong> on XBL<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This is unusual \u2014 typically big titles like Battlefield are cheaper through local retail channels at launch than if you buy digital versions.<\/p>\n

The digital versions then typically become cheaper during periodic sales.<\/p>\n

A comparison of games currently available for pre-order in South Africa shows that Battlefield 1 is not the only game where this is happening.<\/p>\n

All of EA\u2019s other games show the same anomaly, while only the PC pre-order of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is cheaper than its retail pre-orders.<\/p>\n

For this comparison, we checked the pre-order prices of Raru, Takealot, and BT Games, and used the cheapest one.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Digital vs retail game prices<\/th>\nDigital<\/th>\nRetail<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
PC<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Battlefield 1 (Origin)<\/td>\nR600<\/td>\nR889<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Titanfall 2 (Origin)<\/td>\nR600<\/td>\nR889<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
FIFA 17 (Origin)<\/td>\nR600<\/td>\nR869<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (Steam)<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\nR850<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No Man’s Sky (Steam)<\/td>\nR599<\/td>\nN\/A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Watch Dogs 2 (Steam)<\/td>\nR799<\/td>\nN\/A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Steam)<\/td>\nR499<\/td>\nR599<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
F1 2016 (Steam)<\/td>\nR589<\/td>\nR528<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PlayStation 4 (PSN)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Battlefield 1<\/td>\nR829<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Titanfall 2<\/td>\nR829<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
FIFA 17<\/td>\nR829<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare<\/td>\nR1,199<\/td>\nR1,050<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No Man’s Sky<\/td>\nR899<\/td>\nR862<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Watch Dogs 2<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\nR969<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided<\/td>\nR899<\/td>\nR893<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
F1 2016<\/td>\nR899<\/td>\nR878<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Xbox One<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Battlefield 1<\/td>\nR799<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Titanfall 2<\/td>\nR799<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
FIFA 17<\/td>\nR799<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare<\/td>\nR1,199<\/td>\nR1,050<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Watch Dogs 2<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\nR969<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided<\/td>\nR899<\/td>\nR893<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
F1 2016<\/td>\nN\/A<\/td>\nR878<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While this is great news for South African gamers who are happy to buy digital versions of games, this is a big blow for local retailers and distributors.<\/p>\n

Local distributors have no control over the pricing on services like Steam, Origin, PSN, and XBL.<\/p>\n

They are also beholden to the wholesale prices they can get from publishers, and the rand\u2019s strength against foreign currencies, especially the euro.<\/p>\n

EA was asked why there is such a big discrepancy between its digital pricing and local retail prices, and we will update the article with their feedback as we receive it.<\/p>\n

\n

More on game prices in South Africa<\/h3>\n

South Africa\u2019s crazy video game prices: 2003\u20132016<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This is how game prices hit R1,000 in South Africa: 1998\u20132016<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This is how crazy the prices of games are in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Game prices in South Africa: PC vs PlayStation 4 vs Xbox One<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time in South Africa, it is cheaper to pre-order the digital copies of certain AAA titles than to get them through a local retailer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":85841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,11681,4],"tags":[18543,18985,13483,20582,20584,19167,11828,17426,18463],"class_list":["post-99330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-pc","category-playstation","category-xbox","tag-battlefield-1","tag-call-of-duty-infinite-warfare","tag-deus-ex-mankind-divided","tag-electronic-arts-ea","tag-f1-2016","tag-fifa-17","tag-no-mans-sky","tag-titanfall-2","tag-watch-dogs-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99332,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99330\/revisions\/99332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}