Most of the world has heard by now that Grand Theft Auto IV came out April 29th and it was just announced that in the first week the game sold 6 million copies worldwide. The number of games sold for the 360 and PS3 hasn't been announced yet but so far Xbox 360 owners have been buying more of the classic GTA games than Playstation 3 owners. Prices for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, GTA Double Pak, and GTA Trilogy have increased more on Xbox than Playstation 2.
Buying all three older Grand Theft Auto games released on Xbox would cost $76 now instead of $64 in March, an 18% increase. Buying the same Playstation 2 GTA games would cost $33 now and were $30 in March, which is an 10% increase. If you look at all the PS2 GTA games, including the ones that were not released on the Xbox, you see only a 3% increase from March to May. During this time of year video game prices usually go down.
This difference is either caused by increased demand, limited supply, or a combination of the two.
On the supply side the Xbox game supply is limited while the PS2 supply can increase. The Playstation 2 is still around and retailers are continuing to sell new games. You could find many of these PS2 GTA games
In terms of demand, the Xbox 360 has sold more consoles than the Playstation 3. Assuming the game sells the same proportionally on both systems there are more GTA IV 360 owners. Which means there are more 360 owners who are looking to play the classic GTA games.
Below are the side by side price comparisons for each Grand Theft Auto game on Xbox and PS2. Click the charts to see the most recent prices.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Comparison
Grand Theft Auto Double Pak Comparison
Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Comparison
The Xbox prices are more expensive than the PS2 for every Grand Theft Auto game. And Xbox Trilogy for Xbox is somewhat of a rare game now, selling for more than the initial retail price.
Playstation 2 Grand Theft Auto Games Not Released on Xbox
Wii Game Prices | Xbox 360 Game Prices | PS3 Game Prices
13 comments :
JJ, I admire your research on a topic that I much enjoy... it's almost academic. But is an 11% increase really worth such in-depth blog posts?? Well I'm teasing a little bit, but I guess there isn't much else interesting going on with price trends.
On an unrelated note, with the reissues of SMT Nocturne and DDS, how do you think their long-term prices will do? I recall that prices for Persona 2 dropped when that was reissued (2005-ish?) and then slowly started to climb after Gamestop cleared out their PS1 inventory.
Glad you liked the post. 11% isn't huge by itself but going up that much in a two month span when the average video game is dropping in price. It's fairly substantial.
Regarding DDS and SMT Nocturne. I think any time there is a re-release the price will go down some because there is more supply. I still think the games will be relatively rare though even with a reprinting so they aren't going to drop down to $20 in the long term. This is something I will have watch and maybe write a post about. I have never looked at what a reprinting does to the original price.
Do you know when the reprinting is being released?
The Nocturne and DDS reprints were quietly released about 3 weeks ago. Play-Asia and Amazon are selling new stock of Nocturne and Gamestop also got a large batch of both titles that they are selling as used.
Thanks for the info Alex. Since we have been tracking those games for quite a while now I should be able to see a change in price pretty easily if there was one.
Hopefully I will be able to post an article about this next week.
3 is 11% of 30%? c'mon.. i would need a calculator for most percentages too but cmon man
I have changed that 11% to 10%. The real percentage change is 10.918%. Based upon the actual numbers. I rounded the prices in that paragraph to $3 and $30 instead of using $3.26 and $29.86. I should have used the percent change with the rounded numbers for the paragraph instead of the actual numbers. Thanks for point this out.
The prices might have gone up, but those games are still worth every penny. Especially Vice City.
I don't understand why people are seeking these older games. They have the new and it's bigger and better than ever. Purportedly the best game in the series as of yet, but yet they are seeking these older games out which is sub-par compared to the one they already own.
Tyler, I think people buy these older ones to compliment the new one. They either beat GTA IV and want to try the old ones for the first time. Or they buy the old GTA games prior to buying GTA IV so they can get ready for it. I don't think many people are buying them INSTEAD of GTA 4.
This post seems to be thinking almost too deep. The fact is the xbox ones are in more demand because:
1. More people own xbox 360's than ps3s.
2. the xbox versions have much sharper visuals and full widescreen 480p support; Why would you bother with the ps2 versions (especially since there is not longer backward compatability with ps3's.
Nice charts and nice post ill stick with my 360 :)
I wish gta 4 comes on ps2
Lo mejor de Trucos de san andreas lo he podido encontrar en mi xBox 360 , me fascinan.
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