Waiting 6 months - 1 year for games

[smac]

Heck, I have no problem waiting until many years into a generation before buying the next console, let alone games.

Although I usually wait until there's a must-have title to go along with it - so yes, I buy *that* title at full price. But then I get to hoover up the old bargains.

I mean, I bought a GC when Zelda: The Wind Waker came out (and got a silver one to match the rest of the boxes under the telly). I didn't buy a PS2 until Shadow of the Colossus came out (by which time I was running out of must-buy GC purchases) so I bought it for that, and the Ico re-release.

Best bargain was the DC, which I only bought when the price plummeted and they did the five game bundle - yeah, I know, people like me killed the DC; but boy, the death throes were entertaining.

And, you know, I might get a 360, PS3 or Wii next year if something piques my interest enough.

[elmo]

No i cant wait?

Why? I'm an online gamer. For me to be happy with this everyone else in the world will have to wait.

[Leneux]

I am terrible at buying the games I really want near release date, I should wait a lot longer than I do so that prices go down. But usually having to watch friends in other regions buy and play the game I'm desperate for means that I am pretty happy to part with my cash on the release day however many months later.

Because I feel like I've already waited. But I'm getting better at holding on.

[lucian]

6 months to a year?!?! HAHA...I only bought a PS2 two months ago!

Actually I think I can probably count the number of games I bought on or near-release for RRP. Let's see:

ISS Deluxe

Mario 64

Mario Kart 64

Goldeneye

Grand Theft Auto 1

Diablo

Fallout Tactics (eugh!)

Resident Evil remake on GC (I think this is literally the only game I have ever pre-ordered)

Championship Manager 97/98

Championship Manager 97/98 Italian Leagues

Super Smash Bros Brawl (and it had already been out for months in the States)

But looking back those are all pretty outstanding games (with the possible exception of Fallout Tactics) that I have gone back to frequently over the years.

I rarely follow hype, I don't play online (except for a couple of years in the early noughties on PC), and I'm pretty content to pick things up second hand. There is enough quality freeware out there on PC alone to keep me satisfied without ever feeling the need to get something on release. The only thing I sometimes miss out on are the games that were good but didn't sell well at the time and hence are difficult to find subsequently, but with digital distribution of old titles becoming more the norm that is becoming less of a problem.

[lucian]

I have to say also that a big factor in this is that out of all the people I know IRL literally only one plays games seriously and we don't see each other that frequently, so I don't have that whole pressure to get the latest releases as I have no one to play against/with anyway.

[JPickford]

I never wait. I think the shared experience is part of the fun. I'm not bothered about online but I enjoy talking about new games on here.

[smac]

I never wait. I think the shared experience is part of the fun. I'm not bothered about online but I enjoy talking about new games on here.

I like reading about the new games, seeing what gets the buzz, what sounds like fun on here, even if I don't buy the game for ages.

Yeah, there's the ever-present risk of spoilers, but this place is pretty good about signposting these.

[angel]

i buy the big aaa stuff on launch but you get them for 35 quid at grainger or a supermarket anyway...i agree with JP, the shared initial discovery is more fun than the fortnight-later whinge fests the threads become. also everyone online is already way ahead of you.

[Roboplegic Wrongcock]

Well with the increased competition you can pick up new games pretty cheap on day of release.

Also most of the games i buy tend to have a MP component and playing a fresh MP game with people on here is always fun.

coming into games like those a couple of months later can be very frustrating.

[divine visitor]

I always wait until I can get a game for under £30, which is usually not too long after release. Also, I only play one game at a time (not including multiplayer stuff) so I'll also wait until I'm done with the game I'm currently playing before getting the next.

I do enjoy all the hype and discussion surrounding new releases, but I also kinda like being able to experience a game long after all the hype has died down and have little or no preconceptions.

[ManInJapan]

I buy off play-asia so most games are about 20 quid for me initially as I get the Asian version of the xbox360 titles

[CurryKitten]

It varies for me, I always have masses of games yet to be played, so I don't ever *need* anything straight away, but I always want things I'm really excited about on launch. So GTA4, and Mario Galaxy. The rest of the stuff, I usually set myself a £25 limit on which you really don't have to wait that long for. I picked up COD4, The Orange Box, Bioshock, Assasains Creed and Mass Effect around Xmas all under £25 and that wasn't too far after release on some of them

[garuneku]

If there is something I really want, it's mine as soon as possible. I think that half the fun is counting down to release date, then the day finally arrives, so I run around town trying to find the best deal, freebies etc...

I have been buying a few older games recently though. PS2 and Xbox stuff is stupid cheap at my local market. I got Project Zero II for £4 the other week, and its the best game I've played all year.

[fatoy.japa]

I tend to buy things that I know I'm reasonably likely to enjoy (games that fall into the specific genres I really like) on launch, and the same applies to the 'big' titles - GTA IV, Mass Effect et al - since I enjoy writing and reading about them on the forum.

If there's a game that might appeal to me I'll always wait for either a couple of weeks' forum consensus or a demo before dropping my hard-earned Benjamins; by which time they're invariably much cheaper anyway. I picked up Civilization: Revolution after playing the demo almost nightly for a month. It was £25 with a voucher I had and I'm really, really enjoying it despite the thread on here no longer being active.

[MDK]

I only buy about 5 games a year and these are the games that I'm really looking forward to, so waiting doesn't come into it. Besides, my most wanted list for the rest of the year is all PSN releases, which will probably never get cheaper.

The games I used to wait for, I just rent instead. The cost works out much the same as I clock them within 48 hours.

[Fry Crayola]

I never wait. I think the shared experience is part of the fun. I'm not bothered about online but I enjoy talking about new games on here.

I'd buy the games and talk about the experience if I didn't have a backlog of already critically hailed games that I've yet to actually play sitting on my shelf.

It's a game of perpetual catchup, really. Still, when a major game like Portal, GTA IV or Mario Galaxy came out, I've dropped everything else to play it. For something like Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, which I only bought a few weeks ago, I never cared enough about the shared experience (or what there was) in the first place.

[Ste Pickford]

I'm too tight to pay full price for games, so I rarely buy them at release.

It's terrible on the 360. Games lose their value so quickly, I'd feel like an idiot paying £40 for a game that was going to be £20 in a few months.

Wii games don't seem to lose their value at retail quite so dramatically, so I didn't feel like such an idiot buying Mario Kart at launch.

[angel]

thats nintendos famous lack of reduction at work there i think but yeah 360 games drop a hell of a lot, i know its shit but gamestation offered me a pound for pes 6.

[Ste Pickford]

thats nintendos famous lack of reduction at work there i think but yeah 360 games drop a hell of a lot, i know its shit but gamestation offered me a pound for pes 6.

I'm not sure whether or not it's down to Nintendo's lack of discounting - I don't really know how retail / wholesale works in video games. It probably helps that Wii games are a little more reasonable in price to start with (Nintendo have set £35 as the standard price, which only a few 3rd parties try to go above, whereas £40 is the standard launch day RRP on 360, with a few even trying their luck at £45).

I've no doubt that Nintendo's efforts to keep their games on the shelves and selling for longer than a fortnight helps, and maybe that effect trickles down to 3rd party Wii games too?

When 360 games are discounted to £20 or less, I get the impression it's the retailers choosing to do this - clearing stock for the next release - rather than the publishers discounting (I've no idea if publishers are discounting), so it's possibly just a side effect of the hit-driven business model and rush to maximise sales in the first couple of weeks, that's become even more extreme on the 360 than it used to be.

[Raff]

Gamecube games were £39.99 to the bitter end. Even when they'd literally been sitting on the shelf for 3 years.

[Ste Pickford]

Gamecube games were £39.99 to the bitter end. Even when they'd literally been sitting on the shelf for 3 years.

Yeah, that was no fun (

[angel]

even mario 64 ds is still a high price, i got offered 11 quid trade the other day