This is the first gaming generation where, instead of prices dropping for consoles, they have actually gone up. We have seen both Sony and Nintendo increase its prices for PS5 and Nintendo Switch consoles over the past few months. Even if you already own the console, games will soon become unaffordable. New listings were uploaded in South Africa for two new key titles hitting the market and retail video game prices are officially the highest they have ever been.
Both Need for Speed Unbound and the upcoming Dead Space Remake will enter South Africa at an all-time high of R1499. Usually, retail games in the country have managed to stay under R1300. This is not only to make the product more accessible to customers but to also undercut the digital stores where they cost the most. It helps grow the local gaming market and keeps jobs in place.
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Sadly due to the issues taking place all over the world with shipping, logistics and the price hikes attached to this, physical game prices have officially surpassed their digital counterparts. In fact, you can get Need for Speed Unbound and the Dead Space Remake drastically cheaper on all the digital stores which rarely happened in the past. You can see below that even without the EA Play discounts, both of these games are a lot more expensive at retail.
- Need for Speed Unbound
- Dead Space Remake
To make matters worse, this is just the start of the price hikes in South Africa. These two games are new listings in the region meaning future game listings will likely follow the same pricing structure. Thankfully, everything that has already been announced in gaming at the moment is currently listed for sale so those prices won’t change (we hope). But as new games are announced for the year ahead, if things don’t change soon, they too will come in at these ridiculous prices.
It is hard to forget the days when you could buy a Collector’s Edition for R1500 let alone just the game. I know times change but South Africa’s already-tiny gaming market is going to get even smaller with game prices that cost as much as R1500. It also doesn’t help that gamers simply don’t trust developers anymore so splurging R1500 on a video game for it to be littered with microtransactions and bugs also hold people back from buying new titles.
