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Originally Posted by omyard This kind of shocks me because when I worked at Best Buy they would micro manage their margins like crazy. Hell, even the summer after the Wii was released I had a manager who refused to let us sell Wii's unless we could talk to customer and attach accessories and games then pull out the "I think we might've just received some" card. As a former retail person I'm all too familiar with the concept of using loss leaders to bring in customers, but if they're just doing this for any game they're eroding either most or all of their margin. The hope is to make Best Buy their retail destination, but to take full advantage of this you're going to have to invest time into going to another retail store. For a typical consumer I can't imagine they're going to waste so much time for so little reward. They'll have to go into Gamestop or Game Crazy, find a used game they want, call or drive to the local Best Buy and see if they have the same title, hassle with the employee to price match, wait for them to approve or call the other store and then purchase the title. I have 2 Gamestop stores within 5 minutes of the same Best Buy and I'd just go ahead and buy the used game instead of going through all that hassle for a typical $5 in savings. Whatever, I don't care. I the majority of my game shopping on Amazon now.

Step 1. Go to best buy and look at games.
Step 2. Find one you want.
Step 3. Call Gamestop and ask how much the title costs used.
Step 4. Take to register. Tell cashier to call Gamestop for price match.

doesnt seem very complicated to me.

That's interesting.
So I guess they're going to take a dollar or two off each price.
Y'know. Oftentimes the BB price is cheaper than the gamestop used price. That that mean some games will raise in price?

i guess i should head to best buy too

Originally Posted by thelonepig The promotion is officially over. Best Buy corporate pulled it, most likely due to the response of the local GS dropping used prices. The employee I spoke to said that things went well while the promotion was running and they're hoping to see it open up nationwide. I doubt GS would lower their used prices that much nationwide to counter BB's efforts.

Therein lies the big question between BB and GS.

BB had good success with it while GS wasn't playing dirty pool with dropping used prices, so that's encouraging. If BB wants to roll it out nationwide, it might give GS some pause about trying to meet BB at the national level for doing price drops.

It's easy for GS to do a response to BB for one store's area, though nationwide, that's a whole different situation.

I'd be curious to see if this does go nationwide or some small-minded people in BB's marketing department think that it's a failure.

This was in response to the uproar that game developers made about Gamestop selling used games and taking all the profit. And using new game advertising to get the people in the store then sell the game cheaper at their used price. But b/c no developer will come right out and say it against Gamestop, they did the smart thing and went to their competitors. Walmart will soon follow suit, b/c Walmart already uses price matching.

I'll have to see if this hit here in PA when I get to Best Buy next. The store near me is new (opened in October) so their used selection is pretty weak. I think the only 360 game I saw was The Simpsons Game down to $15. Meanwhile, Target opened up with clearanced games.