Konami Europe President Kunio Neo is worried that heavy competition among British game retailers is lowering prices for new games to a point where it's impacting publishers' profitability in the country.
"UK games pricing is very poor," Neo
told UK trade publication MCV. "Retailers are always reducing prices and the profits for publishers are getting smaller. The UK is really suffering."
Neo's statements comes as British retailers quickly slash prices for new releases in order to attract business from competitors. Gamestop UK briefly lowered the online pre-release price for
Deus Ex: Human Revolution to a mere £20.97, leading major supermarket chain Tesco to lower the price to £30.
Ubisoft's
Driver: San Francisco, Sony's
Killzone 3 and EA's
Dead Space 2 are among the other titles that have seen heavily reduced pre-release prices from various British retailers.
"We're based in Germany and despite the economic conditions in many other countries, Germany is doing alright," Neo pointed out. "So we’re not as affected as a US publisher that has a UK office. They’re suffering because they focus their sales on the UK."
But retailers say price cuts are necessary to stay competitive in the UK market. "Whereas other countries have one or two major players we have at least ten with five per cent plus market share," Bee.com’s Gian Luzio told MCV. "This means the customer has more choice and the retailer must fight to win that customer by offering a balance of price and service."
New retail game software and hardware sales in the UK saw a
declined 28 percent between 2008 and 2010 amidst a worldwide recession and downturn in global demand.
