First of all sorry for the lack of posts over the last few weeks, I’ve had an exam and needed to take time to study for it!
Back with a bang and I thought I’d discuss the current cost of gaming and how you approach it affects the cost.
Let’s get one thing straight, I’m tighter than a submarine door when it comes to my money! So whenever a new game comes out I make sure I’m getting it for the best price I can. I try and limit myself to a few games a month otherwise I’d end up bankrupt! This month my game of choice was WWE 2K15, with one or two of the following:
· Halo MCC
· Far Cry 4
· GTA V HD
Now at the time of writing this I’ve only picked up WWE and GTA V, which has cost me a grand total of £89.
Now before I go into the price difference, I’ve based this on buying on the day so I could (in theory) play it on the same day! I did what I do with every new release and go online and compare the prices between the major retailers to see who has the best deal… and to be honest the difference can be staggering.
Below is a comparison I found:
WWE2K15/Halo MCC/GTA V HD
· Asda: £44/£44/£44
· Tesco Direct (Click and Collect): £42/NA/£42
· Toys R Us: £49.99/£44.89/£45.89
· Smyths: £44.99/£44.99/£45.99
· Xbox Online Store (Digital Edition): £54.99/£44.99/£54.99
All these prices are correct on 17th Nov 2014and might well have changed now…..
Now firstly I’d like to highlight how expensive it is to go digital of Xbox!! I’ve got a few games digital and it’s great being able to change game without having to get up and move, having all the updates download in the background without you knowing, so I can see that the future of gaming is heading that way….but at those prices?! When the xbox one first came out and this new digital era of gaming came around I said to myself that I would probably go digital and would even be willing to pay slightly more for the games for the privilege but not £10 more…
But even if you are old fashioned and want that disc, if you are not careful you can get ripped off!
The cheapest solution for those 3 games would be Tesco Direct/Argos/Tesco Direct. But without doing this research I’d probably have just reserved them all at Argos or something. I’ve done this a few times now and I always come up with the same result.
Going further into this, Pre ordering/Ordering online can save you even more money but I try and avoid using Amazon because of a number of bad experiences I’ve had using them in the past. Gameskeynow (or the xbox equivalent gamespointsnow) has proved a great service for me but they don’t always have the latest releases. They did a great deal on Fifa 15 which was £38.99 for a digital code which I had 2 weeks before release day. This meant that come midnight I could play fifa (not that I bothered….).
Moving away from the games… as strange as it sounds talking about the cost of gaming… there are other expectations we are subjected to when we buy these new consoles. At the very bottom of this post I’m going to outline a pretty accurate breakdown of what has been spent on my xbox one.
Overall since the release of Xbox One/PS4 I feel I’m spending more on gaming than I ever have done!
Here is what I’ve spent on my xbox one so far….:
Console: £429.00 (Including 2 games Fifa 14/Battlefield 4)
Headset: £60.00
Games: In total I have bought (excluding the 2 I got with the console) 8 games spending a grand total of £332.00
Total: £821.00
And going forward I’m expecting to pay out for the following:
Rechargable Battery Pack: £25
External Hard Drive: £45
Extra Contoller: £40
So you can see that I’m pushing nearly £1,000in the 10 months that I’ve owned my xbox. I would consider myself quite a low spending on it too as I’ve not really bought that many games for it as I’m waiting for them to go cheaper (e.g. Watchdogs/Dead Rising 3) or I’m looking at renting them!
Overall I think gaming is getting more expensive but you can avoid some of the expense by looking round for the best deal!
Love to hear what you guys think
