Quote of the Day
Robert Khoo on why PAX is coming to Australia:
“I’d say it was a collective decision, but I suppose the true answer is that gamers down there decided,” he said. “Even though their numbers may be smaller in population, their passion for gaming is insane. Retail titles cost $100 plus and they still buy them? Crazy! Can we all agree this is crazy?”
Crazy? Nah, not at all.
Games in the US cost about 60 bucks. But a 66% “Because you live in Austalia” Tax is actually pretty good. We won’t buy anything in Australia unless we are getting completely ripped off.
The US and AU dollars are about on parity at the moment so that makes it nice and easy to compare. Well if you want to get technical, the AUD is slightly stronger.
Let’s take a look at commodity consumer electronics, like the new iPhone 5:
4 times the price. Now that’s more like it.
Tim, there’s a big difference in those US and AU prices – the AU one is unlocked and not tied to a provider and contract whereas the US ones are…
That’s not to say that .au isn’t expensive, it is. It’d love to know the some more of the economics behind the disparity in game prices though, especially as internet delivery should be normalising those prices (although shipping really shouldn’t make that much of a difference as per unit it would be miniscule!).
http://news.techeye.net/hardware/tech-giants-forced-to-hand-over-paperwork