Holiday 2016 Sales PS4 PlayStation 4 1

Booting up a £19.99 copy of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare over the Christmas break, we couldn't help but ponder whether this holiday gone has seriously devalued new games. All games get price drops eventually, of course – some sooner than others – but this feels different. On the European PlayStation Store right now you can nab copies of Watch Dogs 2, Dishonored 2, Mafia III, and Battlefield 1 all at significantly reduced fees. And they're not the only fall releases to find themselves teetering daringly close to the bargain bin.

Something crazy happened at the tail end of last year: consumers got tired. There were a lot of great games in 2016, but many of them relied on the exact same tropes that we've been served for almost a decade; heck, a lot of the blockbusters belonged to brands that have been running a long, long time. And hand-in-hand with that fatigue came a reluctance to buy brand new; prices always get shaved around the holidays, but in response to some dour sales, publishers panicked and really started to slash the costs of their biggest wares.

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Holiday 2016 Sales PS4 PlayStation 4 2

But what's the lasting impact of that going to be? January will play host to a lot of niche titles that will find their audience regardless, but what of its one big blockbuster in Resident Evil 7? Will you be picking it up on launch day, or waiting a couple of weeks to buy it reduced if its sales stumble in this post-Christmas period? And what of Horizon: Zero Dawn in February? It's one of the most anticipated exclusives of the year, but given recent trends it'll be down to half-price by the summer at the latest. Do you really need to be there day one?

Pre-order bonuses and Collector's Editions were, we'd hazard, conceived to stave off this wait and see culture. But with more games than ever competing for our time and so many titles launching in poor states, where is the need to be there day one anymore? While a lot of games may ultimately have been sold during the holiday period just gone, we're starting to wonder what the lasting impact will be. After all, we're slowly but surely being trained not to buy at full-price anymore.

And while this is all unquestionably a good thing for the consumer, we're yet to be convinced that it's a positive for the industry at large.

Has this holiday devalued games for you? Will you be waiting for future releases to be reduced, or do you simply have to be there day one? Can the industry sustain multi-million dollar projects retailing at half-price or less? Drop your price in the comments section below.

Has Holiday 2016 devalued new games for you? (100 votes)

  1. Yes, I'll be waiting for price drops moving forwards49%
  2. Meh, I'm not really sure12%
  3. No, I'll still buy the games that I want on day one39%

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