Xbox One and PS4 bundle madness: Publishers lash out at Black Friday deals

PS4 and Xbox One game sales are being harmed by Black Friday-style console bundles, leading publishers are warning.

 



Xbox One and PS4 games sales are being harmed by Black Friday-style console bundles



 

November saw another round of Black Friday deals that included multiple titles that had been released just months before.

“All the discounts were on bundles,” the UK MD from a leading publisher explained to MCV.

“It was lunacy. There were two, three, even four releases given away with each machine for next to nothing. Gamers won’t need to buy anything else for months. 

According to GfK Chart-Track, The Uncharted PS4 and FIFA 16 Xbox One bundles were the most popular tie-ins, with 70 per cent of consoles sold during the Black Friday week being official bundles with games included.

 

Another source, a sales director for a global firm told MCV that his game was facing a harder challenge due to bundles recently offered.

“We feel we have the better game, but why buy it when they’ve already got a perfectly good alternative in the same genre? There’s an obsession with giving away content for cheap to sell hardware, when surely it should be the other way around," the source added.

It follows the news that UK retailer GAME have reported a 6.7% slide in gross transactional value to £466.8m across the group for the 21 weeks ending December 19, with a low margin of console sales falling 20.3%.

“The trading conditions in the UK video games market have been challenging,” CEO Martyn Gibbs said.

 

Fans witnessed another November dominated by attractive gaming bundles

 

“The switch over from the older gaming formats to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One software has impacted profitability across the UK market.

“The extent of the impact of this switch over has only become apparent in December which has been compounded by lower year on year high street and shopping centre footfall.

"The pre-Christmas period and the winter sale are very important to our customers and with market leading offers we remain well prepared in our stores and online for the remaining peak trading period.”

 

The Black Friday bundles could make it harder to sell games in early 2016