The world’s financial markets are in the chaos which is always a bad sign for things to come. It seems South African video game prices could be on the rise due to this as The Last of Us Part II is one of many first physical releases to sell at over R999 in the country. I have been monitoring the game’s local retailer listings for some time now (in hopes that a Collector’s Edition pops up) and today I noticed the listings have all changed to R1,099.
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Just a few days ago, this was at R999. Upon further inspection, I noticed that all local retailers have now changed their price points to between R1,079 and R1,099. A sure sign that South African video game prices are going up.
Other games have also now hit over R1,000 for physical copies including Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Marvel’s Avengers. All these games are also listed at between R1,039 and R1,099. But the price increases are not drastic. For the most part, they are now aligned with the PlayStation Store and Xbox Marketplace making hard copies an even harder sell over digital. Before you could save a hundred rands by popping into BT Games or ordering off Takealot.com but now, many of these games are either listed at the same price or a little higher.
It is sad. Video games rarely hit over the R1,000 mark for standard edition copies. I guess the rand is just not doing too well and it was just a matter of time before we saw this happen. I have reached out to some local distributors to find out if this is a temporary change or will we start seeing all major AAA video game releases selling at over R1,000.
