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Walmart entering the used video game market
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Look out GameStop! (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
Walmart's quest for world domination continues. Not content with selling only new video games, the retail giant now has their eyes set on the lucrative used game market.
Visitors to their website will now see an option for pre-owned games. There is no mention of whether these used titles will be sold in stores, however. So for now, it looks like it's online only. For more information, click here.
Although there is a shipping charge to have the game sent directly to your home, there is an option for free site-to-store shipping, so you can pick it up at the nearest retail location and save some money.
Stores like EB Games and GameStop (which are now one and the same) have made a killing off of used game sales. Unlike new titles, which have very little mark-up, pre-owned games bring in a hefty profit. Try trading in a few of your games to see what stores offer, then compare that amount to the price that they're reselling them for. It's basically highway robbery.
It's great from a business standpoint though, and now Walmart wants a piece of the pie. There are a couple of noticeable problems, however. First and foremost, the prices just aren't that good. You would think that a company known for having the lowest prices around would continue that trend with this venture. However, I compared prices on about 15 games, checking both GameStop's website and Walmart's website and in all but one case, GameStop had the better deal. Most games sold for $2-$7 more on Walmart.com.
The second issue is the fact that you have to wait for the games to either be shipped to your home or to the local store. When we gamers want to play a game, we want it now. Who wants to wait up to a week to have your game delivered?
This isn't the first time that large retail companies have tried to sell used games. Best Buy recently dabbled in it as well. If there's one company that can make it happen though, it's Walmart. But, they're going to have to offer lower prices than the competitors and either stock used games in stores or borrow a page from Netflix and have shipping so fast, you'd swear they're psychic.
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