Tesco has gotten rid of its dedicated Nintendo section and combined it with the Xbox 360 section. Instead of having multiple Nintendo games in stock, Tesco is only carrying the top five best-selling games from either Wii U/3DS/DS/Wii.
The UK games market loses another retailer
I really wonder what the true numbers of physical sales in the UK actually have been the last 2-3 years
The physical media in UK was always quite good a few years ago because the broadband was so poor. Now that Openreach are getting everyone they can on Full Fibre to the premises this will stop.
I had friends and family on the old copper connection who bought physical due to poor speeds. Soon as they were on Fibre they changed to digital, humans are lazy (myself included) and digital just is more convenient regardless of the downsides, which is backed by the current downward trend of physical copies.
Well, in terms of absolute performance, yes. They are still useful in terms of relative performance among other titles launching around the same time. What I mean is that it is silly to get hung up on a game launching in 2023 selling a much smaller number of physical copies than a prior game in the series sold 5-15 years ago, but they can still be useful to compare two games launching at or around the same time, unless there is some specific reason to think one of those games will sell a much higher percentage of its overall sales digitally.
10 years ago I thought I would never go all digital but I have not bought a physical game in about 5 years. There are really good sales of older games online a lot cheaper than physical. Also it is nice not looking for your physical copy of a older game when you want to play it. But I still want to get a PS5 with a disc drive just so I can watch my Blue Rays when the internet goes down.
Depends where your looking tbh,i picked up Alan wake for ps5 on sale off Amazon for like 11 bucks and some change. Finally got persona 5 for ps5 fir 21 dollars last week. Haven't seen either of those games cheaper on psn
Good point , yeah I never order physical products online, probably because I am in mid 50s , plus I still enjoy going to mom and pop video game stores for older gen physical stuff .
I'm not sure what part of the world you're from but in the UK, physical is almost always cheaper than the prices set on console makers storefronts. Physical proces also drop a lot quicker than digital.
Yep and yep..
I buy online but physical
Haven't paid RRP in 20years of gaming.
Maybe once or twice on n64 when brought as an Xmas present. And that's it!
From USA . So if you buy a game that is not sale on a digital store front the physical copy will definitely be cheaper but when Sony has a Flash Sale the digital is cheaper than the physical store sale price at Gamespot. But as said in reply to my first comment, I know Amazon has awesome great sales for physical copies of games . I see them here at N4G articles.
@purple101 well if you're going back 20 years of gaming then you were in the GameCube and Wii era so I don't understand how you can not pay full retail price except on N64.
Feel like you're maybe using a little hyperbole to emphasize a point. I'm sure you've paid full price for something over the last 2 decades.
Just add the games you want to your wishlist. The PS5 is excellent at notifying you when titles go on sale.
If you're patient, you can great some great bargains in the PSN store.
I’m really trying to understand you. Own Blu Rays for movies but do not own physical games? What kind of monster are you? (Please picture a smile cause I’m just teasing you with the comment)
For those not living here in the UK, I would point out that NOBODY buys their physical games from Tesco who are a grocery store. I don't know anyone who uses Gamestop either for that matter as both of these retailers generally charge full RRP on new games.
Anyone who buys physical games in the UK generally use one of a handful of online game retailers such as Shopto, Games Specialist or Game365. This is because I can usually pick up a 70 quid game for between 55-60 quid.
Same tbh. I always used to use supermarkets because you could grab the game at midnight but with cashback I'm generally paying about £50 for a new release now. Even as low as £40 for FFXVI
We have a grocery/other store chain here in Canada that had an electronics section but scrapped it some years back. I can certainly say I did shop for games there, and was sad to see it go, but they were definitely more impulse buys, and “while I’m here, why not look” type of purchases than pre-planned ones.
"NOBODY"
I regularly picked up games from my local Tesco, as did several of my mates and we always seen someone with a game at the checkout too.
"Anyone who buys" nah, I go into stores such as GAME and occasionally buy from TGC.
So it's not a blanket statement BUT there are significantly less people buying physical, no doubt about it. It's a shame as digital is just another way for DRM to be imemented with that recent study showing that 87% of classic games are no longer accessible.
Sad sad reality of gaming. I will miss the video game stores when they are all gone.
Have you been in a GameStop recently? I can’t wait to get out of one whenever I walk in.
Gaming stores haven’t been a “fun experience” since the 90s.
I have and I think they get a lot of bad press because of some overly pushy employees. Otherwise I love the experience. At least its better than buying from best buy, walmart, costco, etc.
I used to enjoy EB Games (now GameStop) in the 2000s too. It’s the 2010s that killed it for me, with it starting to be a mobile accessories store, and then becoming a general hobby store where it’s not always easy to even find the section for the games I’m looking for, which you would think would be front and centre.
The stores are cramped and crammed full of extraneous stuff that has nothing to do with what I’m interested in, so I just stopped shopping there. If they continued to focus just on games I would probably still shop there, but it’s just not a good shopping experience anymore.
Thank goodness for local small businesses that understand how to run a store of that nature. Most have other things they sell, such as movies, trading cards and board games, but they all know how to lay a store out, section by section, and most don’t feel super cramped and cluttered, and I can easily find what I’m looking for. Also, the customer service is better. So, if I want to go game shopping at physical retail, I know where to go.
From my experience video game stores normally stock games that are popular to many players (afterall the store owners want to make money) so for those players that want less popular games you have not much choice but to get that game digitally unless you are lucky.
I have on rare occasions purchased a physical game that is two to three times cheaper than the digital copy even when that digital copy was on sale.
Still, like it or not digital downloads are starting to become the norm especially when you can go to (I am using the Playstation store as an example) the store and select the genres you want and the price range you are happy to pay.
SNES Classic Mini stock has returned to Tesco Direct today ahead of the Christmas rush.
TechRadar writes: With the PlayStation VR headset often still hard to get hold of, retailers haven't seen the need to reduce the price of the new headset since it launched back in October.
I know, for me the only reason to buy is to have a go. I would sell it within a month
Coming from the guy who wrote F*** PlayStation on another article, should we act surprised ?
Moegooner88, I said 'fuck playstation now' in relevance to enjoying backwards compatibility on xbox one, I own both consoles.
In other words, bought two current gen consoles, one without any proper exclusives support whatsoever, but somehow claim you spend more time on it because it allows you to play games from last gen. Games that could actually be played on respective last gen consoles. It never ceases to amaze me reading stuff like this, especially that I keep wondering how MS gets away with their abysmal exclusives lineup. No wonder you would sell PSVR within a month with that ridiculous mentality.
To enjoy oneself?
Now excuse me while I go and play some Pinball FX and then some Dirt Rally VR...
The same reason you can have to buy any game console. Play games you wouldnt be able to play otherwise and /or play games in a way you couldnt experience otherwise.
I agree but what games are you talking about ?honestly imagine a console only with what was announced on psvr. It's a laughable line up, 1 hour experiences at most.
^ That's nonsense peddled by people who don't have one and have never looked into it. It's just "PS4 HAZ NO GAEMZ" all over again.
Resident Evil 7 is in another league on PSVR, it's not even close! Dirt Rally in VR blows DriveClub out of the water visually and play great. Take a look at what's coming up; you'll be surprised at how often new VR only games are dropping regularly and how many games have VR compatibility, given how young the medium is.
@Bouze
Im personally hooked on Eve Valkyrie playing for hours. I dont think you know what your talking about with '1 hour experiences at most.'
Title is a bit misleading though. its refurbished, in other words not brand new. Im sure the price can vary a lot on second models.
Yes maybe things will change at E3, but personally I think it's going the same way as vita.
Glad I didn't buy one was so close, preordered switch instead:) Zelda or VR have a guess?. Hopefully some amazing stuff will come to PSVR then I will purchase.
psvr and all VR will be over in a year's time...minus the phone apps and demos. but as a viable games medium for the home? it's on its way out.
This holiday they are going to get eaten up by the ps4/xbone hype. It's safe to say that the wii u won't take off or sale half the wii units in its life span. Nintendo will be lucky if they reach 50 million.
This is usually a bad sign. The only other two times I can remember Tesco doing this were with the PSP and Vita. I'm not having a go at the Wii U. All three of those consoles are great. But Nintendo really need to have their games being shown off in stores for everyone to see.
I think nintendo would have done better to evolve the wii concept and give some hardware that is at least 75% as powerful as the next gen systems. They could have built in some kind of second-screen compatibility with the 3DS. Now all they need to do is garner some support for a couple more 3rd party titles and leverage their big names a little more and they could have had a shot.
They got cocky with wii. Wii never had the best software sales and they should have known it was time to change it up while still incorporating what made the wii successful. I havent been a nintendo guy since gamecube. The wii was never my thing but at this point i think nintendo has almost just kind of given up. I mean seriously, whats their plans with this wii-u?
We bought my niece a wii-u for xmas last year so i guess i could pick up mario kart etc
I think someone is doing this outta spite.
It makes sense to limit the stock of Wii U products, but 3ds is the current champ for hardware sales monthly. The only excuse to stop supporting the 3ds is somebody is trying to make a statement because there is no shortage of market for the 3ds
Man that's bad!... I never thought I'd see Nintendo games in the Xbox section.