What a Deal
Well, this is interesting.Here's an e-mail I received from DQ reader Paul Leonard on Friday:
My local EB in Toronto has a special on this weekend. Get a 60Gb PS3 for $399 with the trade-in of any 10 used console games from any platform. The 60Gb version goes for $659. The only caveat seems to be that the used games need to be from the past 12 months or so.
That's $399 Canadian, or about $340US.
What?
Even if you factor in the used games (as long as they're not recent big hits like Gears of War or Crackdown), that's a huge discount.
On Saturday, Paul followed up with this (remember, these prices are all in Canadian dollars, which are worth 85 cents compared to a U.S. dollar):
Okay, so I bit. I took a pile of old games in to use as trade. They were looking for games with a trade in value greater than $8 each. For each qualifying game they gave me a $26 credit toward the system to a max of $260. If a game was worth from $3-$8 then those would have resulted in a $10 credit. The 60Gb version is the $399 or the $20Gb version was $299 CAD.
Further, they weren't advertising this but talking it up in store which means at least 2 visits by the customer. Without advertising this strikes me as a test. I don't see how EB can substantially increase its profit margin on the system this way without Sony subsidizing behind the scenes. Additionally the sales people described this as EB helping Sony move systems. They must have had 20 systems in what is a small store. I'm a regular and some of the guys I deal with have been in the game for a long time. They smell something too.
So at the $399 price point I now have a system.
Hey, for $399 CAD and some used games that sucked, I'd buy a PS3, too.
I don't see how Sony could possibly afford to subsidize this, so I think this is probably a Gamestop/EB promotion. And it will be every interesting so see if offers like this (and variations) become more widespread.
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