Asda Sold FIFA Below Cost, Denies Screwing Suppliers
The price of videogames in the UK is always a sticky topic. If we’re not being charged 50% too much, the retailers are ripping chunks out of each other in a desperate struggle for our attention.
One of the most recent examples of this was Asda selling FIFA 10 for less than £30. Talking to MCV Asda’s games category manager, Duncan Cross, said this wasn’t his company, and other supermarkets, working with publishers to lower the price. Instead he insisted that they simply sold the game at a loss in some extreme undercutting attempts.
This defensive stance comes, as MCV say, after comments by Konami’s UK general manager, Pete Stone, who said these low prices were “unnecessary and worrying”.
Still, cheap games is cheap games.
News Tags: Asda, bargin, cheap, MCV, retail
Next: NGCast Special: Eurogamer Expo ’09
Previous: Haiku Impressions: DJ Hero
What’s the issue here? EA’s made their money by the time Asda’s bought however many copies they will and I highly doubt they’ll send copies of _fifa_ of all games back to EA.
I don’t care for football or football games, but I could sure go for some noodles right now.
You failed to mention, that Konami released their football game at a cheaper price than FIFA. So Konami complaining about some store cutting the price of FIFA is a bit strange and a bit more worrying.
As Conan says, they’ve already made their money once they sell it to Asda. I think this is more of a problem for indy game shops that can’t afford to match the price. Although I did buy Operation Flashpoint from Asda on the cheap so I’m not really one to talk.