PS2 / Wii / PS3 / Xbox do you buy £20-£40 console games? Discuss

MSE_Jenny

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's 'PS2 / Wii / PS3 / Xbox do you buy £20-£40 console games? A simple strategy to cut the cost.' blog. Please read the blog first, as the discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "PS2 / Wii / PS3 / Xbox do you buy £20-£40 console games? A simple strategy to cut the cost" Blog

Gemmzie

I always use https://www.find-games.co.uk to check the prices too

BigBouncyBall

i'm still playing with my mega drive! Cheap games all over ebay! Retro gaming rules - and cheaper than the lastest games!

aris

Not many places rent out Wii games - certainly Blockbuster do not.

cheesetriangle

It all depends on the way you play games too. Renting a game for one or two nights won't necessarily give you a good enough idea of whether you should buy it, as a game's longevity may be only slightly more than those couple of days. I've rented games, gone 'wow', bought them, and then only played it a few times after that. There's always the risk of you getting hooked too, and then keeping the game for another, um, 'rental period' (aka fine) - at which point it's suddenly become 20%+ of the purchase price.

I personally find renting games a bit of a rip-off, especially since they are usually more expensive than dvds (i.e. lovefilm).

A good way of getting cheap games is to wait for the folks that buy a game then and ditch them towards another in Gamesmaster/Game/etc - you can easily get really recent titles for less than 50% of the new price, and great older ones for less then a fiver.

The benefit of doing it this way is that you'll also be reducing the amount of money that you'll pay to swap the game for something else too - often if you are quick you can even blag that you just didn't like it (or it didn't work right) and get another one for free. Even if you do keep it you'll get a trade in value much closer to what you bought it for later down the track.

I guess the trick is to wait a month or so if you aren't absolutely sure that you'll like a game - it will get a lot cheaper, very quickly, if it's not really good.

Broke_Student

I believe Blockbuster gives you back the cost of renting the game if you decide you buy it from them after you've tried it!

BillScarab

One tip is to avoid buying naff games in the first place by checking reviews.

www.metacritic.com is excellent for this, they collate reviews from lots of different sources and then average the scores to give a good indication of how good a game is. They also do this for films, DVDs, Music and books. There are also user reviews on there so you get a very balanced view of the merits of a game.

OGM

I agree metacritic is an excellent website for reviews, but it isn't always right. It lists at fairly respectable 69% (not excellent, but not awful either). However when I played it I couldn't stand it, and within 3 hours it was up on eBay. However, this was alright because I'd bought it on eBay for £17 and then sold it for £22!

The way I buy games is to set myself a maximum price I am willing to spend that is much than the average price on eBay. You have to wait a while to find a bargain auction, which is why I have a long list of games I'm after - this method is no good if you have to have a game right now this instant.

When I finally get the game, if it's good then I'm satisfied, as I got a good deal, and if it is bad I can stick it back on eBay for a Buy It Now at slightly higher than the average price, which almost always sells making me a nice profit!

Inden

The best solution I have found is using www.swapgame.com.

It is a web-based game rental service which costs £15 a month for which you can rent 2 games indefinitely with a game being sent out every time you return one. They will also sell you any game that you have rented for less than half price (ususally).

This generally means that for the cost of 6 months of the service you could have bought 2 games.

They rent out all formats and the games are available on the day of release.

The only downside is you can't specify exactly which game you want as they require you to create a list in order of preference and will send you whichever game is currently in stock and in the highest place on the list.

I've been with them for about a year and so far no complaints at all.

All things considered I think this is by far the cheapest way to play games as long as you don't play more than 2 at once or you absolutely have to own the game.

CalvadosJnr

and whatever you do .... DONT .... Trade in old, unplayed games

... put them on ebay you'll get ALOT MORE for them

philjhale

Has anyone ever used any game swapping sites? I think there are a few around. I'm interested in peoples experience with them.

I've registered with https://www.thegameport.co.uk which has only been running a couple of months. On the site you list which games you want, and which games you have but no longer want. It matches you with a person who wants one of your games, and you send it to them in exchange for 'Game Points'. Once you have some points people can send games to you. Each trade costs £1, and each game is worth a different amount of points based on how long its been out (I think)

To me this sounds like a great idea. Get a game for £1, avoiding being ripped off for trade ins. But only if it works of course. I've sent off a Wii game and received some points. Unfortunately someone has 'committed' to sending me a game, but hasn't actually sent it. I'm trying to resolve this at the moment.

Has anyone used thegameport? Or any other game swapping sites?