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Sega Goes Cheap to Battle EA in NFL Game Sales?
An anonymous reader writes "According to as yet unconfirmed reports on DealRush.com, Sega is going full force at EA's football market share by slashing their football game's price by 60% and only asking $19.99 this upcoming year, instead of the usual $49.99. EA, the current market leader in football games, outsells Sega's title, year after year, by a wide margin. This year Sega may have adopted a new strategy to hook them with price, and follow through with quality in an effort to increase sales. EA has yet to respond. ESPN NFL ships in August for Playstation 2 and Xbox. [A GameSpot report has a Visual Concepts spokesperson indicating there will be 'big announcements regarding the game soon', but there's no official word.]"
This will probably work and Sega will prove you can make bank and charge considerably less than the going rate for a game. After they rake in the beans from their mass quantity of sales the industry will go "[the sheep] are still willing to pay $50" and not change anything. Way to go Sega, keep fighting the good fight to stay afloat!
schild
editor, f13.net
i think it's amazing that competition is helping lower prices. video games have been really expensive for a long while. unfortunately i don't play sports titles.
Over here (Europe) EVERYTHING is 60(~US$70).
Only second hand crappy games would be $50. You'd have to dive deep into the bargin bin to get one for $19.99.
Some games are works of art, some are god awful pieces of software unfit for use. Not only that games are the same price across systems?! Why is the current system of price fixing in effect? Someone call the FCC! The FCC's european counterpart!
At least PC games have a good spread in price. I picked up C&C:Red Alert 2 for 7!!! Hot danm!
May the Maths Be with you!
is this true even if they are referring to EA as an entity?
...which is always Madden. I know the quality will be good, and know the gameplay. I bought NFL2k a few years ago, and while good, I still preferred Madden.
At the $20 price point, I will still purchase Madden, but now will ALSO purchase ESPN NFL, to see how I like it. At the $50 price point, I never would have tried this.
Kudos to Sega, for giving me a chance at their game!
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
heard about this yesterday and thought it was a great thing
eventually EA will cut prices on football games to $20 to combat this and plays will ask "well how come all sports game can't be $20?" then all sports games will have to be cut to $20. eventually people will go "well if sports games are $20 why can't all games be $20?" and then the world will be a better place. for you, and me. just wait and see.
Speaking of Xbox, that's really where these games stood above Madden, with the Xbox live play - with EA jumping onto Xbox Live next year, forget that advantage.
But at $19.99? Hell, I'd buy copies for my cross-country friends just so I can whoop their asses on Xbox Live. If Sega does this with their other sports games, their very-excellent NBA and NHL games could catch fire. The ESPN presentation elements is fantastic.
The Kingdom of Retarsia
Am I the only creature on the face of the planet who remembers this game and NBA JAM! and thinks that it was 10X better than your avg. football game?
It was unique and creative and had ways for you to 'boost' and 'upgrade' your players as well as playing for the same teams that were in the current NFL league.
I like my games to have a lil more than your avg football game and especially hearing in NBA JAM where the announcer said "HES ON FIRE!" or in blitz where your guy would speed up and bust people up made that game more enjoyable.
I play games to escape reality, not live it.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
Needless to say, developers slashing prices is a good thing. However, I'm worried how casual gamers might take this. The general public seems to have accepted the fact that games big cost $50. Only charging $20 could make Sega's games appear as though they are producing something less than a decent title. I know that I would generally be wary of something that costs 60% less than everything else on the market. This often indicates lower quality in a product.
Now, I sincerely hope this is not the case. I would love to see Sega thrive charging less for their games. But it would be a real shame if they didn't sell because they undercut too much, and consumers didn't realize the other games are overpriced...
--LordPixie
Let's face it, a lot of these games are still being bought by parents and grandparents for kids as gifts, bribes, etc... So slashing the price to the impulse buy level of $19.99 will play well with this crowd. And if the quality is up to previous titles, then for once low price won't mean some crappy knockoff of a hit title.
Way to go Sega! I may pick up a copy or two (my nephew would love this...). I hope that if successful, it will put some downward pressure on the prices of new releases. Still, for the amount of entertainment, compared to movies for example, game prices aren't too bad. But I still remember in my younger days, that a new game meant a lot of work and saving, so $19.99 could bring in a lot of new young gamers too.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Now, if Sega's pricing takes hold, it would be great to get the regular sports titles (not things like EA Big titles, of course) for a total of $60/per year and have this season's games. I like the idea and I applaud Sega for doing it (even if it was out of desperation). I like the ESPN games and think Sega has a lot to contribute to the market (though I would not argue that EA doesn't have better overall games in this area). It's about time this happened...
Guess who's been reading "Eat's shoots and leaves"
The title is Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The official site is here. Also, it is a book, not a short story or an article. Either underline it or put it in italics - do not put it in quotes. And where's the question mark?
Now: I have yet to pick the book up. However, I do have a BA and an MA in English, which might explain it for you.
it actually may have been a safer move to sell it at $30 or $40, which is starting to become a trend for smaller games.
This was almost exactly what I was thinking. ALL the big publishers sell games at 50$. $30-$35 is still significantly cheaper, but is much less likely to to set off warning bells that you might be purchasing a piece of crap. $19.95 just smells....cheap. Sega would garner a higher profit margin with less chance of backlash by just making their games a little more expensive. (I can't believe I just advocated a company raise their prices.)
However, this issue could probably be mitigated with effective advertising. That can go alot to make people aware that these aren't just 'bargain' games - they're games at a bargain. And not just gaming magazine adverts. They need to get the word out on more mainstream outlets.
--LordPixie
Why does that person need a question mark? I read the sentence as if it was a command.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
However, you are correct - that could be read as a command.
What is the company doing that warrants the $50 price tag? More importantly, what needs to be changed? Updating rosters and adding expansion teams makes complete sense, as does throwing in any redesigned jerseys or uniforms.
Still...do we really need a brand new graphics engine every year? There's only so much that can be done, you know, and the changes in each console generation are usually relatively small. How about all of the modes that they've been throwing in? Owner? Coach? How about Popcorn Vendor mode? Sell buttery fresh goodness while watching the game as you walk around the stands! The games are just fine graphically and controlwise, and we've got all of the modes that we need: single game, multiplayer, season, playoffs, and practice are really all that a game must have. The others are nice but unneeded.
The only thing that I can think of that would warrant the $50 price tag is online play, and even that's not really worth it. The practice with sports games as of late seems to be discontinuing online gameplay shortly after the new game comes out, and Xbox Live is already $50 a year. Is a year of online football really worth an extra $50? I'd much prefer it if they offered free and continuous online play without any form of official support or leagues, but that's just a pipe dream...
I've got a feeling that Sega won't be losing much money from this. Tweak the graphics and modes if you must, but as long as it's got the basic modes and current rosters, it's got everything that's needed.
Goo goo g'joob.
holy crap, if you don't know what the word means don't bother replying.
Can already be pre-ordered at Gamestop for 20 bucks.
PS2
XBox
Such is the confusion that arises when there is no ending punctuation at all. The reader is left to determine the writer's intended meaning.
You've already earned two positive moderations from this enchanting, off-topic discussion. Note the original poster's user name and posting history, and cut your losses now. The battle for grammatical correctness is hardly worth fighting on Slashdot. We likes our shiznit cordial and simple all up in here, aight? Allow the masses their flaws.
Plus, to be frank, I have way the hell too much karma not to burn right now...
If I can get the updated roster of 2004-2005 this year at $19.99, there ain't no way in hell I am buying Madden football.
Last year when I rented Sega's football it was just slighty off because it didn't retain statistics as good as madden. That will all change now, especially since the gameplay was always on par.
Gamespot has a preview at http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/sports/espnnflfootbal l2005/preview_6100052.html.
I dont know where you people all shop for your games, but i'm just back from my neighbouhng Fry's and all the EA 2004 sport lineup is already at $19.99. Most of the new PC releases are also around $35. Some games keep the premium and sell at $50, but most dont.
Moreover, prices fall sharply quite fast for those "premium" games. A few months and they are at $29 or $19.
On top of that, Fry's often special sales just on the release date of big games.
With all that, i dont think i've paid $50 for a game in a long time... And this is good, as this way, I buy more of them. ^_^
EA could be considered a collective noun, and the rules regarding verb agreement with collective nouns are not cut and dried. Though I come from the camp that says collective nouns get singular verbs, there are some who say that using a plural verb is acceptable when you're emphasizing the individuals in the group (I seem to remember this being a British thing?). "The Beatles" is actually the name of a corporation (or whatever the legal term for a music group is) of individuals, just as "EA" is, so inconsistency there is a little weird (though I admit that "The Beatles have" sounds better).
(And hey, if we're gonna be really picky, you used a hyphen where you should have used an em dash. You're also inconsistent with your placement of commas and periods with quotation marks.)