Biggest Dutch retailer boycotts PSPgo News

If I were a business owner I'd do the same. It makes sense.

Manufacturers will start selling direct online eventually and cut the bricks and morter stores out of the equation all together!

Fair enough but I think Sony should be selling vouchers for specific games for download off PSN. This would mean retailers can bundle these with the psp go to make it more appealing to buy.

Surely they have seen the contactless game purchase stations for in store sales? They get a cut from that. Sony had them on display in Berlin...

@ GamerG
If you check prices on Steam or XBL, you wil see that prices are mostly higher than what you would pay in a normal shop.
A monopoly on supply via download only would not a good thing for customers.
Capitalism only works when there is true competion.

Nedgame may be the largest console game specialised reseller in the Netherlands, but I've never heard of them, and they're probably still very, very, very small compared to regular retailers like malls, media stores, toy stores and so on where the vast majority of these consoles are sold.

That said, of course the objections they have against a device like this are understandable, particularly the not being able to sell games for it bit. ;)

I understood that the majority of retailers were involved in discussions with Sony regarding the price point of PSPgo for this very reason.

Obviously Nedgame feel that hiking up the price to offset the loss of software sales is still not enough to justify them giving PSPgo any shelf space.

Interesting...

If they decide that it makes sense then who are we to argue with them? I'm guessing they did the maths and figured out that it wouldn't make sense financially.

@ Arwin

Luckily I'm not the only Dutch person who never heard of Nedgame the ''supposedly biggest dutch retailer''

The future begins.

@ Hieronymus

They never said Nedgame was ''supposedly biggest dutch retailer''
They said its "Holland's largest specialised retail outlet" ie a pure games store.
Specialist shops are usually smaller in number than the mainstream chainstores.

We had a Nedgame here in Enschede but it closed some time ago.

Haha I live in Holland too, and have never heard of this company.

Personally, i think we're seeing the pre-rumbles of an earthquake thats going to level the current games economic eco-system.

If, as it appears likely, we're starting down a path that removes purchasing a physical product, and instead revolves around digital delivery and/or cloud storage and delivery, whats going to happen to traditional games stores?

I don't think as consumers we need to worry, i beleive more and more channels will pop up for digital delivery, and we'll see true competition, but the next few years will be interesting to say the least!

They don't need to sell vouchers for games though do they? There are Euro PSN cards for that, bundle it with x amount of PSN cards.

If someone wants to buy a PSPgo though, they'll find a way.

I tell you one thing retailers won't like which is no physical copies = no 2nd hand game market. They make a mint off that.

Arwin and Hieronymous: I'm Dutch as well and I do know Nedgame, and yes, they are (at least one of the) largest retailer(s) in the gaming branche. Then again, we don't have so much gaming-only shops over here, so yeah, they're still bloody small, especially in comparison to Media Markt or Free Record Shop. ;)

@anomagnus

I will never buy most of my games digitally. Nobody can guarantee I'll be able to play them in the future if somebody goes belly up or a new system is introduced.

@All Dutchies:

Was going to say I've lived here for about 20 years and I've never heard of this retailer either.

i live in the netherlands as well (hoi dutch people, good to see you all come out of the woodworks :), and afaik gamemania is the biggest specialised retailer - at least they claim to be. there's 2 of 'em here in amsterdam, and i've never heard of/seen a nedgame store.

but i support this decision - if more retailers refused to sell overpriced products, i'm sure manufacturers would take a more reasonable approach to their pricing strategies.

Why would Sony care about this boycot? People will buy the hardware online or in another store (it's only a one time purchase) and after that they'll just download. Sony doesn't need the support of the retailer for the PSP Go.

What WOULD hurt Sony is if these retailers would also boycot the PS3, and/or the normal PSP + UMDs, but that is obviously not gonna happen any time soon.

@Earl

well, many of us who live here don't actually speak dutch ;)

@EarlBasset, dunno why but I speak Dutch also and never check the eurogamer.nl/be site. This one is just better written and faster with the content.

It would be interesting to know what the make up of profits of gaming shops in the UK is. I think that quite a bit of it would come from pre-owned games now as ever shop has a large selection of them. The Gamestop in Belfast is mostly Pre-owned games with a smaller portion of the store going for new games. The Game stores in Belfast, which there are quite a few of, are starting to go the same way.

I'm getting a PSP3000 mainly so I can get pre-owned games to build up my collection.

I applaud this, the price in Europe is just extortionate. It costs more than a Wii or 360, and only slightly less than a PS3, who in the right mind would ever buy one? I do actually like the design, and would have been interested in getting one, but the price killed any chance of that happening, along with the fact it's digital only just means they can charge more than Microsoft does for Games on Demand. £17.99 from a store.. £24.99 on the Go. Digital copies should not be more expensive!

Instead, I bought a 3000 with the new Dissidia bundle.. I'm pretty sure I made the right choice.
If anyone else is looking to buy a PSP, I'd highly recommend that, especially over the Go.

so while the dutch eurogamers are showing themselves - if you're around amsterdam and into monster hunter, pm me.

Also dutch, also never heard of nedgame.
But honestly, they're fighting a loosing battle here.

Why 4 people in this comments section when there is a Eurogamer.nl ???

Because it's awful? Besides, I don't see this being eurogamer.co.uk.

Anyway, chalk me up as another one who never heard of this "biggest Dutch retailer".

I have never heard of this "Dutch" people you are speaking of?

Anway... back to topic. Apple can do it.... so Sony just needs to sell game-point-cards.

Personally i can't wait for the big chain second hand selling high street stores to go bust. When everything is digital download it will get cheaper as you'll buy direct from the publisher which means the costs will come down. All the money will go to the people who make the games, not whoever happens to own a brick and mortar store in your town meaning we'll get more choice, better games, not the same rubbish GAME in every town.

"@EarlBasset, dunno why but I speak Dutch also and never check the eurogamer.nl/be site. This one is just better written and faster with the content."

I thought that might be it. I can't read Dutch so can't check the NL site to see how poo it is!

And here's another one popping up who's never heard of Nedgame.

@anomagnus
I sure hope digital distribution isn't the only distribution channel of the future, because I fear there will be NO competition at all and prices will only get higher (B. Kotick anyone?).
Prices aren't exactly going down in the music bussiness either, are they?

That will not happen chief, they will charge what you are willing to pay and you have been willing to pay store prices for a long time.

Sony is just recognizing where things are heading for portable gaming (not so sure it will go full out non-physical for stationay though). Retailers are porbably nervously eyeing what happened to record stores the last couple of years, but after having shafted consumers with ridiculous prices on used games I feel little sympathy to be honest.

Personally i can't wait for the big chain second hand selling high street stores to go bust. When everything is digital download it will get cheaper as you'll buy direct from the publisher which means the costs will come down

Anyone who still believes platform holder and publisher hype that the upcoming direct download-only era will cause prices to come down are seriously fooling themselves.

If the margins on the consoles are really as bad as rumored I'm sure they don't care about the lost sales from not stocking that thing.

I live in Holland and have to face Dutch people in real life all the time. This is my sanctuary away from them! :-)

I thought the high price point was because it included a higher percentage for the retailer as there is no other benefit to them selling them as there will be no physical software sales.

Have owned PSP for years, and only bought four games. Video playback requirements are too specific, and it's too clunky as an MP3 player. Don't get me wrong - it's a lovely piece of hardware, but it just never out-did anything else on the market to be the one-stop media solution.

PSPGo sounds great for people who really hate their money.

this is why ppl saying "Digital DL is the future" is wrong, or at least far from certain, retailers won't be happy being cut out of the deal (e.g. as this article already pointed out), and also it's bad for consumers as Sony/MS can charge whatever they like online for DLs due to lack of competition, prices staying high for a long time, instead of the now norm of games coming down in price after a few month & we can pick up bargains, & then there is the "resale" value once you've finfished the game etc, all the advantages over DDL.

I'm going to add my name to the "Who the f%ck are Ned game" list.

Are they some sort of suplier?? Because I've never seen them in the highstreet over here.

/is Dutch, also doesn't care about EG.nl

I once knew a guy who was studying to work in the fashion retail market. He explained to me that 95% of all purchases are made based on the inward opportunity that the consumer recognises in potential growth. Each season the industry would notice a pattern - for every sale made profit would increase, loss sales and profit would decrease. This marketing phenomenon is called "The Verswayze Effect". Many insiders have challenge the theory however. The general consensus among all retailer experts aged 18-21 is that marketing is just a layman's way of saying "Who am I?", in other words we are all in the same ship, but each ship is it's own captain.

This a really interesting development. Ok so it's a Dutch company not stocking the PSPGo, but it makes you wonder...

The entertainment retail stores in the UK (and most other places) generate their core revenue from selling new and preowned games. Little is made on hardware and accessories. The management of such firms must've worked out by now that (at least for the PSPGo) this is not going to be profitable, and in fact is going to start obliterating money from all PSP sales (games, hardware, accs). Logically it would make sense not to push a product too heavily that is going to damage your retail business. Instead we might see more generic stores cashing in on the short term - such as supermarkets (hmm... actually the Tescos & Sainsburys around Bedfordshire don't push PSP stuff anyway...), and general retailers likes Argos, Toy's R'Us and onlines store cashing in. Something like am iPhone business model...? Not really.

An interesting anolgy would be with the apps for the iPhone - but that doesn't fit, and it annoys me when people make the comparison. Apple only uses O2 and it's own stores. PSPs are available to various retailers. Apple made its app store a key starting area for buying software and didn't change its software medium a few years into its product lifecycle, and risk alienting retailers (it didn't have any to upset in the first place). Maybe Sony is willing to take this path if it believes it will better for itself in the long run?

Blah... I'm off.

It happened last gen in a way: most retailers supported systems that played dvd's more than the cube that didnt, so they could flog extra stuff.

Gonna be interesting!

1) Sony's business model with PSPgo being digital download only

2) Consumers concerns re Digitial Download being the future or is it?

At the end of the day, wallets talk.... so if I was Sony I would just carry on as Apple pioneered as to how iTune had been a global success to an extent. Games are growing but difficult to sort wheat from chaff as we know, but with more and more games being DLC this gen in proportion compared to last gen.

So the trend seem pretty clear that this is a direction we would be going, and partly the fault of the second hand sales for cutting the publishers out of the finance transactions.

Now is it evil that DLC would be non-optical copy? I got plenty and plenty of old gens games stocked up, most of them will fail to work anyway! Magnetic and all that, so IF I was able to get my account to be eternally associated with the purchased copies of those games, I WOULD have been easily able to download them again and play them?

The question of ownership IS very vital to the debate of how DLC would work, so if consumers can be assured we wont be paying again and again for the same product we owned then I can see this potentially works well.

Holland's largest specialised retail outlet, Nedgame

They should open one of them in Glasgow.

@Penguinzoot
Anyone who still believes platform holder and publisher hype that the upcoming direct download-only era will cause prices to come down are seriously fooling themselves.

Indeed, current digital stores like Steam on PC and Games on Demand on 360 show that they're not really interested in lowering their prices, particularly not just because a game is "old" (i.e. out for about a year or so).

Now it is conceivable that they have some kind of agreement with the retailers that they won't sell below a certain margin (that would be a great reason not to wouldn't it) but I can't see them deciding to reduce prices just because they can.

Lets see, if currently the publishers get about 10 bucks profit, soon they'll get 30 bucks profit: cha-ching!

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if most Spanish retailers don't stock them since they're a staid bunch (especially Corte Ingles who NEVER discount their prices) when compared to UK retailers, which is why I buy most of my games online (Niponia.net)

BTW, re the "local versions" of Eurogamer debate, I've just visited the Spanish site for the first time now when following the link provided here. I just always presumed that news items reached the Eurogamer.net site first then was "farmed out" to the regional sites.

http://www.nedgame.nl

They have 8 shops.

Not exactly large, but then size isn't everything ;-)

@ nuanimal

'An interesting anolgy would be with the apps for the iPhone - but that doesn't fit, and it annoys me when people make the comparison. Apple only uses O2 and it's own stores.'

You can buy an iPod Touch from just about anywhere.

@Penguinzoot
'Anyone who still believes platform holder and publisher hype that the upcoming direct download-only era will cause prices to come down are seriously fooling themselves.'

But it already has for download only games. You can pick up some cracking games on XBLA or PSN for around a tenner - far more affordable than the 40 quid the shops want to sell you games for.