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They've been around for a long time - e.g. http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/39778477/733191752/JUSTOP-K9-Android-4-1-Jelly-Bean-Smart-TV-Dongle-Adapter/ListingDetails.html?_%24ja=tsid:13315|cat:39778477|prd:39778477&ef_id=UUID2gAAAMCLcj2l:20130416095630:s . There's lots to choose from - add a cheap wireless remote and you're set.

Many of those games were roughly equivalent to indie games these days, in terms of the amount of manpower required to produce them.

So ... what has the march of time brought us?

Firstly, inflation. The price of a loaf of bread in 1980 was £0.33, in 1990 £0.50 ; now it's more like £1, so prices have roughly doubled for the essentials of living.

An A-list title in the mid 80s would have been something like Elite ; I remember paying £15 for it (on cassette tape). The package was a robust cardboard box, with the cassette, a manual, a novella, a reference card, etc. I remember getting other games in just the standard plastic cassette box for less.

Elite was originally the product of just two programmers ; although it spawned a large number of conversions and a few unsuccessful sequels.

Right now, I can see Elder Scrolls : Skyrim listed for £29.99 . This is similarly, an A-list title of it's age. The quantity of man effort to produce it has no doubt been enormous. There is no doubt that you are getting a product that contains far, far more content than Elite, which used procedural generation for the bulk of it's content. Being silly ; you are getting around 300,000 times as much game (considering data volumes) - although it's probably more fair to rate it in terms of the hours of gameplay you get before being bored.

So, an A-list PC title seems to be priced about the same as it was in 1985, accounting for inflation, even though it probably cost several orders of magnitude more to produce.

Part of this is accountable in terms of duplication costs - it's cheaper to duplicate optical disks in a standard box than it ever was to duplicate floppy disks and cassettes. Part of it is the expansion of the market ; back then, a computer was a niche item - I had to walk to the next town to buy that copy of Elite. These things really go a long way to compensate for the fact that making games is MUCH more expensive than it used to be. You could knock out a feature-parity copy of Elite pretty quickly these days - modern programming tools would make it a cinch to achieve what you used to have to do manually in assembler or even raw 6502 machine code, and the plentiful resources a modern computer has means you wouldn't have to resort to dirty little tricks like changing screen modes in the middle of a raster frame so you could have a display that was monochrome, but high res at the top, and colour but low res at the bottom.

Even indie developers have to produce a product that is visually and aurally much more polished than anything from the 80s or 90s if they want to succeed. When you look at something beautifully simple like Osmos, you do wonder how they manage to sell that for a price that is, inflation included, around a quarter what you used to pay for a game in the 80s, given the level of artistry involved.

I agree with your observation that with the advent of CD-ROM, publishers went a little mad, and desperately sought ways to get "value for money" out of all that storage space they weren't using - they went from having perhaps 10MB to play with (if your game shipped on 15 floppies, not uncommon), to having 700MB. Hence the "Full Motion Video" crapfests of that period.

For a really cheap alternative physical product, something like this might help take the concept from the screen to the real world. It was my first experience as a kid at putting some instructions into a real life object and having it follow them, and setting up a basic maze or something would help them think through the problem of how to navigate it end to end.

Hi David,

I'm pretty sure you're in the UK. Here are some of Amazon.co.uk's rivals, who also do delivery:

• Play.com
• HMV
• Waterstones
• John Lewis
• Tesco
• ASDA

It's as simple as ordering from Amazon's rivals instead of Amazon. You don't even need to move from your seat!

Isn't internet capitalism grand?

I didn't say Android Netbooks were common (I listed them in the rough order I've noticed each OS around a rather student heavy area of London where I've been working recently) but they are about, especially the Acer one in the first link. When I've seen the Acer, I've been quite surprised how many people are using it with Android rather than Windows 7 (it's dual boot) as I'd have assumed people would have stuck with what they knew, but I guess Android provides a more responsive feel and does everything the user needs the machine to do. As for Windows 7 netbooks, yes, they are about as you noted, but we were discussing where Windows 7 might have lost potential marketshare, not where it has managed to get it.

"It's useless to care about the pirates who would do it anyway, is a smaller group and usually dont have that much disposable income anyway. But it's the casual people and adults - your idea about piracy will change after you start getting more disposable income, like happened for me and lots of my friends and now happily buy what we enjoy (and another reason was the quality improvement and easiness of Steam and Spotify and other legit services)."

Um... no. "Lots" of my friends and I have a high disposable income. But we are simply not delivered what we want in a format that we are willing to use.

Frankly, the number 1 feature that "my group" looks for in a media player is a USB slot, and the ability to play xvid avi files. You know what? A lot of players now offer this. From the low-end on up. Can I go and buy a movie or tv programme in that format?

I don't really think that the (in the US) RIAA and MPAA are particularly on the ball -- they should have filed suit on Samsung, etc. for producing such devices. THERE IS NO "LEGITIMATE" CONTENT FOR THESE DEVICES. Would I purchase such content? Yes, I would. Ripping CDs and DVDs is a serious pain.

There may well be services like "Steam", but, honestly, I am a 50 year old, and I have never, and (most likely) will never use it. Just tell me where I can buy a copy of the new Batman movie on a USB stick. Meanwhile, if I buy a DVD copy (haven't yet), it may have yet another "anti-copy" measure de-jour implemented to make it inconvenient to rip. Frankly, it's easiest to simply torrent the damn thing (time is money, you know, and I have other things in my life to worry about).

Now, it is true that studios HAVE released movies in flash drive format:

http://www.bit-tech.net/custompc/news/604788/ghostbusters-is-first-film-to-be-released-on-usb-stick.html

but note that it has "DRM". It won't play on my Samsung player! And, its $53 for Ghostbusters (25 year old movie).

http://www.play.com/Gadgets/Gadgets/4-/11998344/Star-Trek-USB-Stick/Product.html

DivX, can "enable" up to 5 devices. Only $30 (much better than over $50). May work, but I am not sure enough to actually buy it.

And that's it. Meanwhile, what WE (my group) wants is the ability to purchase the programming, put it onto hard disks (good heavens, even my wife has a 1TB USB volume used for media and backing up her netbook, and we have 6TB in the home media server), be able to transfer to USB media for portability to be able to watch where we want. MY group sees nothing wrong with spending north of $1000 for a media pc. As long as it works. And the prices are dropping; we only paid $100 for a 1TB USB drive.

As it is, the content creators get very little from us. We have the money, but there is no product that we are willing to purchase. Which has driven us into torrents. Now, it would be hard to break the habit. Unless the content providers can somehow magically give us 500Kbps+ downloads of an incredibly large catalog. Which is the minimum bar that the "pirates" have set.

What has to happen

To get us back (and we ARE the ones with the money), the content has to be provided in SD or better quality, on-line, and via brick-and-mortar shopping, for the same price (or better for a download version), in DRM-free formats that are playable on the common home kit (aXXo's format would do nicely).

I would pay $5 for Ghostbusters (it's a 2 for $10 movie at WalMart). Billing must be as convenient as the Apple Store (and, yes, we buy from the Apple Store; but not music -- just iPhone games and applications. Why that is is another discussion, but remember, I *am* 50 years old).

And, having done that, it would still take time to convert us (our group). After all, we have been using torrents now for years.

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/655/862/-/10823678/Disgo-Net-Browser-3000-64MB-2GB-7-Windows-CE-Netbook/Product.html?searchtype=genre Less than £100 and a much better spec than yours.

Personally, I got very angry about Steam when they decided to change their online shop pricing to local currencies for some European countries - of course not without some juicy price increases. Basically, one Dollar then was transformed into one Euro now. (One Euro currently equals to 1,5 Dollar)

Of course, this created a HUGE uproar among the community, with a notorious thread residing on page 1 of their general forum for several months now, currently at 449 pages despite heavy censorship: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=770231

The wave of complaints meanwhile caused many Steam sellers to demand price adjustments, since they were affected as well by all this negative publicity among European customers. Nowadays, the price situation varies from game to game for continental European customers who are forced to pay in their local currency - may be a fair deal, may be a rip-off when compared to US prices. And surprisingly, UK Pound prices are often even cheaper than US Dollars.

Okay, one last topic for my rant posting: The price issue in general. I mean what the hell?! As an Austrian citizen, it is far cheaper for me (like 30% cheaper!) to order a boxed game at http://play.com/ and have it shipped to me from the island of Jersey than purchasing a mere digital download on Steam. Yet Steam is very successful - they must be swimming in money. What infuriates me is that our economy/politicians/whatever created this bizarre situation, and are doing nothing to change it. It is an ecological nightmare! Producing DVDs and shipping them all over Europe by land and sea is less expensive than sending a few GB of data through some glass fibre? I want to see the person who's responsible for this. No, actually I just want to punch them in the face.

Hey this might actually become my first 5-star posting *hopes for the best*

It reminds me of Zima Blue.

(I don't have my copy here, so I can't point you to the specific story, but most of the stories in the book are good.)

It also reminds me of Anathem.

It reminds me of Zima Blue.

(I don't have my copy here, so I can't point you to the specific story, but most of the stories in the book are good.)

It also reminds me of Anathem.

I'm primarily a PC user, I don't own a console personally, but I use one occassionally.

When I first heard the idea of mainstream console DLC about 4 or 5 years ago, I always assumed it would be things like map packs, themes, skins etc, or small updates (patches, even) to purchased games stored locally on the machine. This is pretty much how PC games are kept updated so the concept was quite simple to grasp.

The most important difference between PC and console DLC is that companies charge for console DLC. Why is this? I don't imagine PCs are any easier to develop for, and once an engine exists for a specific platform content should be directly compatible between them all, shouldn't it?

The fact this DLC is being released on the same day as the game it's updating shows pure greed and disrespect for the customer. Console games are already way overpriced as it is, in some cases nearly twice the price. Is there any regulations governing pricing for DLC? Things like recommended retail prices are illegal here in the UK and DLC supplied by a single source (the publisher/developer) is a cartel by definition, surely?

I'm primarily a PC user, I don't own a console personally, but I use one occassionally.

When I first heard the idea of mainstream console DLC about 4 or 5 years ago, I always assumed it would be things like map packs, themes, skins etc, or small updates (patches, even) to purchased games stored locally on the machine. This is pretty much how PC games are kept updated so the concept was quite simple to grasp.

The most important difference between PC and console DLC is that companies charge for console DLC. Why is this? I don't imagine PCs are any easier to develop for, and once an engine exists for a specific platform content should be directly compatible between them all, shouldn't it?

The fact this DLC is being released on the same day as the game it's updating shows pure greed and disrespect for the customer. Console games are already way overpriced as it is, in some cases nearly twice the price. Is there any regulations governing pricing for DLC? Things like recommended retail prices are illegal here in the UK and DLC supplied by a single source (the publisher/developer) is a cartel by definition, surely?

Sure, if you buy from the network's that's the case. But you can also buy phones SIM-free and unlocked if you go elsewhere. Play.com has a good selection - they even sell imported iPhones SIM-free and unlocked now.

It's right to say that, for example, selling phones SIM-free in Belgium is 'the Belgian way', because subsidising phones is illegal there, but to say that subsidising is 'the UK way' is misleading.

Valve's store is too high anyway, particularly for new releases.

As an example, I opened up steam and checked out the first game that appeared: Dawn of War 2.

On steam, it costs £34.99, about the RRP of a retail PC game. http://store.steampowered.com/app/15620/

On play.com, it's only £22.99.

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/5380006/Warhammer-40-000-Dawn-Of-War-II/Product.html

Do you honestly mean to tell me that the cost of manufacturing the box, pressing the disk(s), pressing the manuals and then sending them out to Jersey is actually more than £10 cheaper than throwing it on a server somewhere and having someone download it through the internet connection they pay for?

When will someone come up with a hardware or software RAID solution to enable several USB flash drives to appear as a single drive on Windows? with relatively reliable & fast (12MB/s write, 30MB/s read) 16GB flash drives as cheap as £16 each I'd love to cram as many as I could inside my Eee and have them appear as a single drive instead of many individual drives.

Play.com have Windows XP Special Edition model in white at 329.99 GBP... all the others, whether XP or Linux are 349.99 GBP.

Presumably the XP OS is therefore free of charge. Perhaps they felt guilty at overcharging UK consumers for Vista?

In Guild Wars, you can choose the nationality or language of your district when in any town or outpost. This makes it a great game for practicing languages, including far eastern ones.

There are no subscription costs either, just the single fairly low purchase price, although if you became interested in the gaming you'd end up buying the two other campaigns and the expansion as well.

The downside is that games players can't spell for shit, so you'd be learning from very bad teachers. Learning languages via MMO needs some grammar and spell-checking add-ons. :-)

Play.com has them for £99.99 in the UK. Not yet in stock, though.

I use a Nokia N73 (although all of the recent N and E-series phones would probably work) with the S60 port of Putty. My secret to SSH bliss is to use an external bluetooth keyboard - in this case an iGo Stowaway. It's close enough to full-size to be comfortable, features useful terminal keys (Ctrl, Alt, Esc, pipe, etc.) and it's also not prohibitively expensive.

My only gripe would be the size of the terminal. On a candybar phone like the N73 with a 240x320 display, you're unlikely to get an 80x25 character terminal. If there are any specific applications you need to use, make sure they're happy running in a smaller terminal. There are a few out there (particularly curses apps) that will check the size of your terminal and refuse to start if it is below a minimum size.

Another difference from Betamax is that an HD-DVD player can play today's most popular format without trouble - the DVD. It can also act as an upscaling DVD player, so in fact you'll get better quality than a standard DVD player.

There was a Digg link where everyone laughed at play.com rebranding an HD-DVD player as an Upscaling DVD Player with HD Capabilities. I disagree with the laugh track - I think that's a clever step to take, and it's also completely true.

Cheers,
Ian

Have you checked out the store at Play.com?

http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download/6-/DigitalHome.html

It's all DRM free and quality varies from 192kb/s to 320kb/s. There's also some mention on the help page of zip files and whatnot so maybe it does that with multiple track purchases. I've not used it myself but it sounds like the sort of thing you're looking for.

The only version of Star Wars available on DVD is the Special Edition.

You don't say?

The only version of Star Wars available on DVD is the Special Edition.

You don't say?

No, he's just picking a bad example. The Orange Box is pretty fairly priced, but compare the Nokia N800; it's $236.48 in the USA, and £229.99 here (both prices from Amazon). Pretty close to a 1:1 exchange rate.

Of course that depends where you buy from Play.com offer the same for £149.99 delivered

But you are right to a certain extent in so far as some electronics do cost more in the UK, as other posters have pointed out part of the extra cost is down better consumer protection legislation that increases the cost of doing business in the UK. Basically consumers have a lot more rights but end up paying slightly more because it costs business more to comply.

I agree with everything you say, but in my opinion the prices for these downloads are just insane, and that's at least as off putting as the DRM. itunes sell episodes of, say, Greys Anatomy (hate that show) for £1.89. So, a twenty two episode season will cost £41.58. Well, for £34 I can have the same twenty two episodes delivered to my door.

So, for less money I can get a better product (nice box, extra features, physical copies, I can rip it to any format I want.). Why the hell would I choose to pay more for less?

Us Europeans are in luck: http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/1009410/Kolchak-The -Night-Stalker-The-Complete-Series/Product.html?ad d=1009410 I also ordered the box containing both movies. It's region 1, but who doesn't have a multiregion player these days?

You wont believe it... When I came to UK one of the things I aimed to do is to get some of the nice British Metal CD's... I thought they were going to be cheaper than in Mexico... but to my surprise, the cheapest you can find them is £7.00, and that is the cheapest online store. £7 ~= $150 Mexican Pesos, whereas in Mexico you can find them at $99 Mexican Pesos (£4.6). Talk about overpricing stuff uh?

PC games are a lot cheaper too, in the UK it's not uncommon for a PC version of a game to cost half as much as the 360 version.

The article claims that the licencing fee is only about $7 - where does the rest go then?

e.g. on play.com Battlestations Midway: 18UKP vs 40UKP, Star Trek Legacy: 18UKP vs 25UKP, Oblivion: 18UKP vs 30UKP, Prey: 10UKP vs 18UKP
http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/478909/BattleStati ons_Midway/Product.html
http://www.play.com/Games/Xbox360/RNR/3-/2553438/B attlestations_Midway/Product.html
Can't be bothered to link the rest, check for yourself...

Of course, the answer is that the prices are what the market will bear. Try to charge 40UKP for a new-release PC game and people will just pirate it, whereas Gears of War has an RRP of 50UKP and people bought it.

PC games are a lot cheaper too, in the UK it's not uncommon for a PC version of a game to cost half as much as the 360 version.

The article claims that the licencing fee is only about $7 - where does the rest go then?

e.g. on play.com Battlestations Midway: 18UKP vs 40UKP, Star Trek Legacy: 18UKP vs 25UKP, Oblivion: 18UKP vs 30UKP, Prey: 10UKP vs 18UKP
http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/478909/BattleStati ons_Midway/Product.html
http://www.play.com/Games/Xbox360/RNR/3-/2553438/B attlestations_Midway/Product.html
Can't be bothered to link the rest, check for yourself...

Of course, the answer is that the prices are what the market will bear. Try to charge 40UKP for a new-release PC game and people will just pirate it, whereas Gears of War has an RRP of 50UKP and people bought it.

See, that was just a lie and I'm pretty sure you knew it.

Just as an example:

Play.com lists a Wii with Wii Sports at £179.99..

Play.com only lists a PS3 with 3 games at £524.99, saving £89.95, so the undiscounted price would be £614.94. Take off 3 games at £49.99 and you're still left with £464.97. That's the premium version of course, but I can't imagine a world where the standard edition costs less than half that.

See, that was just a lie and I'm pretty sure you knew it.

Just as an example:

Play.com lists a Wii with Wii Sports at £179.99..

Play.com only lists a PS3 with 3 games at £524.99, saving £89.95, so the undiscounted price would be £614.94. Take off 3 games at £49.99 and you're still left with £464.97. That's the premium version of course, but I can't imagine a world where the standard edition costs less than half that.

You don't have a clue, do you?

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3ZY 1&SearchType=1&CategorySelectedId=11034&SearchTerm s=controller&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=A ll&NavigationKey=11034&v=2#infoarea
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/842412/Microsoft_XBo x_360_Controller_For_Windows/Product.html
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-6m-49-en-70-fi 1.html
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/07/ 1815222

I've used a wireless mouse and keyboard to play FPS games on a TV, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it so long as you have an armchair to rest your mouse on.

Oh, for the love of Miyamoto aren't we over this yet? I've have a gamepad of some sort plugged into my PC for over a decade. Remember serial ports? You could get gamepads for them. Right now I have a a gamecube controller plugged into my PC, a force-feedback flightstick and a dancemat to go with that, and I've used a wheel before too. Since USB came along supporting 4 controllers simultaneously hasn't been difficult, and you can play 4-player Smash Bros with controllers on PC with no trouble.

USB controller.

Xbox 360 wired controller works with PC via USB as standard.

Console to USB adaptors are dirt cheap and easily available.

Wii remote is standard bluetooth, you can use it with a PC.

Yes, they don't come packed it with a standard $399 PC, but anyone who actually cares enough about the issue to think "hey, it'd be neat if I could plug my PS2 controller into my PC" can spend 5 minutes shopping online and get it done.

Nintendo Wii, sexy - but white? please don't be apple - black thanks

PS3, uglier and less practical than PS2 - Shiny was a dumb move but also not downright ghastly

Xbox 360, good god - I will not purchase this for my home theatre cabinet till it comes in black, period.

If by not too costly you mean £110'000'000 (using UK site play.com as a guide). Besides, there's a chance that being so hard to get hold of and so sought after, it may only add to the hype of the machine.

Personally I agree with you that £50 is too much for a game and it'll be interesting to see if the price stays the same. I'm hoping for some kind of pricing war between Sony and MS, which would be good for us, but I'm a bit doubtful that that will happen.

I agree, "ten bucks and up" per movie is actually quite expensive.

If you happen to live in the EU I heartily recommend play.com. All their already cheap prices include shipping - and no, I'm not affliated with them in any way, I'm just a very happy customer.

Please, keep in mind that in this Brazil vs Orkut case they have chosen the most evil path. They don't want to risk losing the $$$ they get from adwords in Brazil, even if that's just a very small percentage of their total sales.

You shouldn't think in terms of the US Constitution, because the Brazilian "constitution" doesn't have any teeth. Even if there is a nominal protection for "freedom of expression" in the Brazilian constitution, it's so weak and there are so many exceptions that the only freedom of expression we, the Brazilian citizens have, is to agree with those who are more powerful than us. Some specific examples:

1) The catholic church:

They consider anything related to Jesus Christ their own trademark. They actively fight by any available means anything that could be considered derogatory to them. For instance:

-They are very active in the carnival celebrations, no costumes or decorations containing anything related to religion is allowed. There was a carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro once when one of the samba schools floats were censored by black plastic, under an injunction obtained by the church, because the theme for that parade mentioned religion.

-A televangelist preacher was prosecuted once because he touched a statue of the Virgin Mary in his TV show, to demonstrate that it was only a material image. The act of touching that statue and saying, "look, this is just a clay statue" fell under the Brazilian law that prohibits "promoting religious hatred".

-A TV ad showing soccer player Ronaldo was removed from Brazilian airwaves because he was shown with stretched arms, and the church claimed it was an image that resembled the pose that Jesus had in the cross.

2) "Apology of crime":

Anything that may be considered as a defense of criminal acts is prohibited by Brazilian law. This is specially prosecuted when artists mention drugs.

-Members of a rock band called "Planet Hemp" were arrested a couple of times, just because of the band's name.

-Any music whose lyrics could be considered an implicit mention of drug use is prohibited. Songs like Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Puff the Magic Dragon" or Bob Dylan's "Tambourine Man" would be illegal in Brazil, if the words were in the Portuguese language.

3) Homosexualism:

Homosexual groups are very active in censoring anything they consider "homophobia". A comedy show was recently removed from the airwaves under a court order because they showed some "candid camera" clips where actors pretending to be gays accosted men in the street.

4) Racism:

There are two actions that are crimes related to racism under Brazilian law. One is "racial discrimination" and the other is "offense caused by racial prejudice". You can go to jail in Brazil, either for denying a job to someone because of his race, or for using the Brazilian equivalent of the "N" word, which is "crioulo". None of the cases being prosecuted against Orkut fall under the true "racism" issue, they are all "N word" cases. Amazingly, reverse discrimination is totally legal in Brazil. There are popular music bands called, for instance, "Mama Africa" and "Cidade Negra"(Black City), but calling your band "Mama Europe" or "White City" will put you in jail, with no bail allowed.

5) Other manifestations:

You cannot say anything that pisses anybody off in Brazil, no matter what, under a general "defamation" law. One rather funny example: a book on soccer star Garrincha was removed from the bookstores under a court order granted by request of his daughters. The reason: the author, mentioning Garrincha's sexual exploits, wrote that his penis was about 25cm long. The book was allowed to be sold, because a hgher court judge considered that saying

He was IN violent games. As a model, anyway, not to mention being on the cover.
Maybe even voice acting, I don't intend to buy a piece-of-shit movie-tie-in game to find out:

Arnie's shame
and another...

He was IN violent games. As a model, anyway, not to mention being on the cover.
Maybe even voice acting, I don't intend to buy a piece-of-shit movie-tie-in game to find out:

Arnie's shame
and another...

..and I love it. I spend more money on music now than I've ever done. After seeing some music at allofmp3.com I even ordered the real cd from play.com.

I haven't been a user for long but so far noone has abused my credit card and the service has been just excellent. The free software, alltunes, is ok for browsing/searching artists, browsing their albums, previewing songs and buying seperate songs or the entire CD. Usually I end up buying whole albums instead of just the one song I wanted, since it's so cheap.

I can certainly see how the recording industry is scared of allofmp3 but they CAN register with russian copyright and get their share of the money I pay for the tracks. :-)

I still buy CDs for some of the artists I love, and I still go to concerts. As a matter of fact I'm going to a Sting concert in Stockholm next week.

Here you go - £549.99 for the 60Gb, though you have 3 mandatory games as part of that. Which may change, so you can't even order on the basis that the games sound like fun, since you might get three completely different ones.

Frankly, at that price, Sony can go piss up a rope, Blu-Ray or no Blu-Ray.

I see the PS3 is on sale at a Euro website, Play.com for the low low price of 549.99 British Pounds. But that's delivered.

It's only £13-15 (dunno what that is in dollars) and gives you 25 hours of play time from a full charge.

It just means there's one less little thing to be worried about.

According to both Amazon and Play that's actually less than the recommended retail price (RRP) for the DVD, which is £24.99 (nearly $50).

Needless to say, both are doing massive discounts resulting in £12.99 ($20).

The high street price in the UK is incredibly variable at the moment. I've seen some fresh titles up there at £17.99, whilst other just as fresh titles are £12.99 or less even.

All that said, I agree that the price is too high. I reckon I would consider paying rental prices (£3-3.50 for recent releases) for a download only version. Thing is, if I'm buying the DVD, how much more would I pay to be able to download it straight away before having to wait for it in the post? Probably no more than about 50p or £1 at a stretch.

The scary thing is, people are happy to pay about 75% of high street prices for music from iTunes, and you don't even get a copy of the CD in the post later with that!

It costs only UKP 17.99 per pack, and there's no subscription cost.

That's amazing value for many many months of top notch, GF-friendly gameplay. :-)

I think the price of the 360 is rather resonable actually. For example, here in the UK, an iPod http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=ELEC& title=815355&p=322&g=420&pa=genbrw/ [play.com] is more expensive than the console http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=stts2&page=titl e&r=X360&title=659411 [play.com]. Granted its a top of the line iPod but then so is the 360.

I think the price of the 360 is rather resonable actually. For example, here in the UK, an iPod http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=ELEC& title=815355&p=322&g=420&pa=genbrw/ [play.com] is more expensive than the console http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=stts2&page=titl e&r=X360&title=659411 [play.com]. Granted its a top of the line iPod but then so is the 360.

$50!? That's cheap! The RRP for XBox 360 games here in the UK is about £50 which is about $85 ($72 without tax!)

Play.com appear to have stock. :)