Topic: GameCube Price Drop in Australia

[Aussie Ben PGC]

Going, going, gone!  Nintendo GameCube, cheap at half the price -- Australia only!

Australian Target department stores are having their massive Toy Sale as of Thursday, 24th of July.  Target is slashing the GameCube's price to $149, just under half the usual price.  Unfortunately, this may seem to indicate that Target, like so many other stores recently, is trying to get rid of their GameCube stock and stop supporting it altogether.  Or, I could simply be jumping to conclusions.  Whatever it is, it's a great time to pick yourself up a GameCube.  This is especially true if the GameCube and Game Boy Player bundle is included in this half-price deal.  If not, you're still saving $151, and as we all know, that one dollar can really make the difference.

Big thanks go to Ed Dolista for the heads up!  

[Djunknown]

hmmmm... What to make of this?

I'm sorry for the Aussie gamers in a way, it seems that retail chains, and salesman in these chains are just dropping Nintendo like... droppings. But who's really to blame? The consumers for not buying? Nintendo of Australia for not doing enough promotions?  I remember a story where such chains such as Ebgames push XboX and PS2 just because it also has DVD capabilites. Seems kind of...shallow. What about the games? Push the Games!!

Its all messed up. What do Aussie gamers think of this?  

[Patch]

Well, well, well. Another one bites the proverbial dust, as they say.

Let's add to the 'list'.

Dick Smith
Harvey Norman
K-Mart
Target

Coming Soon:

Toys R Us (They've not advertised a GC product since, well, launch.)
Grace Bros
David Jones


What a mammoth cock-up. And Nintendo have no-one to blame but themselves. I hope they fire their advertising department. All of 'em. And then burn their houses down.

The Gamecube is a wonderous console. Failure in a marketplace that's similar in tastes to the US is shocking. All Nintendo needed to to was mimic US marketing (hold some events, or at least get their product out there, FFS.), but it's all too late now.

These are the final gasping breaths of a beached whale.

Goodnight sweet prince. T'was your parents that killed ye.

[Shift Key]

It really is a shame how little Nintendo Australia did this time around.
I hope they do a better job next time around, because three is definitely too many in a small market like Australia.

But there'll always be EB. It'll be a cold cold day if they stop stocking GC games.
BTW, EB have reduced GCs to $199 too.

[wileybass]

I'm temporaily living in Australia right now.
For your information, $149Aus is about $98USD, not bad.
Unfortunately, because of the strong Aussie dollar the games have been comparably more expensive then in the United States.  Most new games run at about $99Aus which is about $65USD, yikes!!

[vroenis]

how about the fact that pso, skies of arcadia, burnout 2 and super monkey ball 1 and 2 were only available for sale for about three and a half minutes before nintendo decided not to send us any more... serious - i'm in melbourne and my good friend at my comic shop got me a copy of pso from perth.  lucky i got burnout 2 the week of it's release because now it's gone.
i don't know how many other titles aren't getting shipped to us, but we get the euro pal games anyway, so from now-on if we want something rare we're going to have to import it from the u.k. - you do all realise that one pound is worth about three australian dollars...
oh yeah, and ikaruga never came out here either.

[PIAC]

-____- another one bites the dust indeed, *holds onto his copy of skies for dear life* i want PSO :\ EB will probably be the other place to buy stuff at this rate, and even then it will be kinda difficult :\

also, though a accidental piece of investigatory work by yours truely, i dont think Dick Smith is dropping support at all, they printed me out a list of games that were on sale, and prices, yet they gave me one that had some info on it, next to some games (namely the crappy launch titles) they had the words 'do not restock' and next to other games (mario sunshine, resident evil etc) they didn't have anything, whether this means that they are just clearing out the garbage as it were, or whether they actually had no copies of said games in their warehouses and had copies of the other games remains to be seen. so yeah.. who knows o_O

*eats australia*

[RABicle]

Big W will always hold true. I hope.
But really, if things deteriate much more then I'm going to get a freeloader, althoguh importing games doesn't exackly help the current situation...
Oh well, they are only games I guess, there are other things in life. I have too many GCN games anyway. Although I want Soul Caliber 2.. And Skies... and  and and.

[vroenis]

basically we've just been shafted by nintendo, both inc and of australia - they just don't take us seriously as a market force, and fair-enough in a way, there just aren't enough people here to have the full weight of such consumer giants as japan, the u.s. and the u.k, but there are plenty of fans here all the same.  the market in australia is unique - there is room here for all four platforms (including pc), and i think people will buy any number of them if the marketing and product support is cool enough.  while abandoning my pc gaming roots because of hardware support and patching issues, i do plan on getting the other two consoles in due time, and many of my friends have one of those other two, if not both, some all four.
australia i think is a cross-console market, and nintendo i think have failed to realise this... aside from the fact that they have done absolutely nothing at all to sell the cube in any way shape or form with the sole exception of the brief television campaign for the launch.
love alone won't keep nintendo aus alive, especially when they deny us the games we want the most.  when the dust settles they'll have no-one to blame but themselves.

[doogie]

whats the story with the price drop to $150?  is it still on?  i went into target (adelaide) a month or so ago and they were $150 but now when i have the cash they are back up to $329!  EB is selling at $250 too.  did i miss my chance?  i want a $150 gamecube damn it.

[PIAC]

aparently so :\ who knows with this stupid country, my suggestion to any aussies on this board i don't allready talk to, go pre order any games coming out that your even thinking about getting, so you don't lose your chance! *uses PSO, Skies of Arcadia, Burn Out 2 and Resident Evil 0 as examples*

allthough... with the 'news' of nintendo 'relaunching' the cube here with a budget of 10 million.. who knows?

[blackfootsteps]

Quote
Originally posted by: PIAC
aparently so :\ who knows with this stupid country, my suggestion to any aussies on this board i don't allready talk to, go pre order any games coming out that your even thinking about getting, so you don't lose your chance! *uses PSO, Skies of Arcadia, Burn Out 2 and Resident Evil 0 as examples*

allthough... with the 'news' of nintendo 'relaunching' the cube here with a budget of 10 million.. who knows?

i agree, i preorder everything...you never know when games won't make it.

[Atma]

go pre order any games coming out that your even thinking about getting, so you don't lose your chance! *uses PSO, Skies of Arcadia, Burn Out 2 and Resident Evil 0 as examples*


*has PSO, SoAL, and can find RE0 for sale if he looks for 5 minutes*

PSO I bought off shelf, SoAL I asked someone to order in for me (apparantely it ships again in ~5 days), and RE0 I could find and buy if I felt like it, which I don't.

[PIAC]

yeah RE0 is easy to find, its been discontinued though, skies and pso are, for me, impossible to find :\ you lucky b....

ive never even seen a copy of PSO on the shelves, ever. if anyone has an australian site that i can order it from i would greatly apreaciate that.

edit: i would like to point out i pre-ordered skies, and have never seen a copy since.

[Atma]

I saw two (copies of PSO), and I bought one, and my friend bought the other

as for PSO:

http://burn.com.au/products/products.php?plat=gc&query=Phantasy+Star+Online&field=description&delete=show&x=4&y=12

look there.

[vroenis]

PSO has to be one of the strangest games in australia - it appears, disappears all the time - and the nintendo aus site still says it hasn't been released.
are all these stores getting their shipments from suppliers that ship to the uk?  because you know we get uk releases anyway.
at the moment, pulsar on bourke st, melbourne, has about eight copies on shelf, don't know how many in store, but that was monday - they could have sold out by now.