Weekly Discussion Wrap-Up: Sales

So our second week long discussion topic comes to its end. This week we looked at the kind of deals you can pick up in sales. This actually sparked a lot more discussion than I’d been expecting, which is always a nice feeling. Anyway lets get to the important bit right away, my pick of your comments.

The first thing that leapt out at me was how poorly Sony seem to be doing with their sales. Quite a lot you commented that you weren’t impressed at the reductions on PSN Sales, in particularly the January sale seems to have been a let down for many of you, although apparently the reductions around Christmas were better received. In fact that’s almost exactly what DrNate86 had to say on the subject.

I was disappointed with the January sales on PSN, but I thought the Xmas ones were fantastic, I spent nearly £40 on bits and bobs.

Sticking with Sony for a minute the other thing I saw crop up once or twice was PS+. With the offers and free content that PS+ subscribers have available to them it does make sense to take a pass on most sales, as simplebob said.

Having Playstation Plus seems to mean that I’m not too fussed about digital content sales. I tend to prefer physical media anyway, and with PSN+ its very easy for me to skip sale stuff (unless its stupidly cheap, or something I must have) as it may come up at a later date.

Unsurprisingly Steam seemed to be the service getting the most love in the comments, with their absolutely huge discounts and the breadth of the content they make available at low prices being highly praised. The only downside with Steam seems to be that their normal prices are so high that it’s better to either buy physical copies or wait until they come up on a special offer, as philbert8 related.

I love waiting for the Steam sale and I check the specials everyday. The fact is though I never buy anything from Steam unless it is in the sale, if there is nothing cheap I want I leave the shop same as on the highstreet.

This is an issue I’ve certainly noticed with Steam myself, it really doesn’t seem worth purchasing games through Steam unless they’re on sale. This is, obviously, more true of new games than older titles. The other thing I’ve noticed with Steam sales is how often purchased games get ignored. Given that Steam keeps the titles for you without any need for you to download them and the very low price of games it makes sense to pick up something even if you’re not sure you’ll play it. It’s not even going to take up any virtual space, let alone physical space, so why not pick it up? A number of you echoed this, including jimmy-google.

I like the sales but on the downside i have about 20 psn games I’ve bought and not played, 6 un-opened ps3 games and about another 10 unfinished.

So that’s my pick of what you had to say about digital sales. If you feel I’ve missed something, why not talk about it in the comments below? Make sure you keep your eyes peeled for a new topic tomorrow, but for now I’d like to give the last word to asparagushunter on the good that sales can do.

Talking of Steam sales, I’m reminded of how Introversion Software were pretty much saved from going out of business by a Steam sale. Some great games and a safe games company; therefore sales are awesome.