Have you bought one of the new consoles yet? Did you pick a WiiU? An Xbox One? Or maybe a PS4? If you chose one of the first two, feel free to relax, but take this as a cautionary tail when dealing with Gamestop. Unlike the Xenoblade Chronicles scandal not even a year ago, there are no theories here or preconceptions. Gamestop is looking to rip off PS4 gamers right now as I type this.
What am I talking about? Well there has been a gaming story moving around the websites for the past few days about how the Playstation Camera has become very hard to come by. Major internet suppliers have run out of the things, and the retailer Amazon shows this very well. A quick look reveals the machines which sell new for $60 almost everywhere are now in the realm of $90-$110 (new or used) as the main store has run out and humans, ever the opportunists, are looking to make a killing. But we expect that from them and those of us who are patient usually enjoy laughing at them when we get our hands on what we want cheap and with a side of their tears.
What we DON’T expect is for a retailer to get into the act, and this time, Gamestop has by jacking the price of their stock of new machines up $10. You heard me right, Gamestop has decided to break the suggested retail price because “you really can’t go anywhere else just right now.”
What makes this so different from “Xenogate?” (I know, I know, but if we have resolution gate, we can easily have this.) Xenoblade Chronicles was revealed to all be used copies the company moved to buy-back from their audience. It sucks and shows just how much Gamestop is willing to abuse the used market, but these were still used games which had already been through the system at the price set by Nintendo. When they came back as used, they were pretty much Gamestop’s to set a price for. This, on the other hand is not used hardware. In fact, the pre-owned camera is still the exact same price you expect them to set for a used piece of anything that is still “shelf new:” $5 less then the suggest retail price (or $55 in this case). But new cameras have gone up $10 to reach $70 where everyone else lists it at $60, even as everyone else is out of stock.
If you are a PS4 gamer who was looking forward to streaming on twitch and show your face in the corner of the screen like so many “pros” do, I would suggest you wait. Yeah $10 is probably not the biggest deal, but at the same time, it’s the idea of it… Gamestop is pulling some seriously shady business here… and I don’t think any of us want to tell them that works.
Sources:
- JoyStiq: Gamestop raises price of PS4 Camera as supplies dwindle
- Gamestop.com: New and Used Playstation 4 Camera sale pages
- Bestbuy.com: New Playstation 4 Camera Sale page
- Amazon.com: Playstation 4 Camera search
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