Reduced Price Guide Thread XIV (FAQ in 2nd Post)

Dark Rider

Dark Rider

CAGiversary!
Feedback
24 (100%)
The Reduced Price Guide FAQ/OP has been moved to the SECOND post. Read this first!
[customspoiler="Disclaimer"]
All credit goes to IAmTheCheapestGamer, floormat, and guinaevere. They ran this thread for years, and I can safely say we would not have penny guides here without them. Thanks for your work!
[/customspoiler]

Private message me if there is something incorrect or needs to be changed in the non-wiki pages.
Below is two years or so of guide drop info. If you want to see the full list, please refer to the third post of the Reduced Price Guide Thread XIV that can be found HERE.​

Note that date may be of confirmation, and not of drop.

CE/SE/LE=HARDCOVER GUIDE
Red=Gamestop drop
Blue=Best Buy drop
Pink=Toys R Us drop

 

Recent Drops (Last Six Months)

Dropped 3.23.16 at GameStop

Game Stop 1 Cent

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate CE

Just Cause 3

Halo 5 CE



Dropped on 3.26.14
 

Gamestop

Battlefield 4

Disney Infinity

Grand Theft Auto V

Remember Me

Super Mario 3D World

Dropped on 2.26.14

Gamestop 

Assassin's Creed IV: CE

Battlefield 4 CE
Grand Theft Auto CE

Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds CE

Skylanders Swap Force CE

Wonderful 101

Dropped on 2.14.14

Toys'R Us

Rage
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Mass Effect 3

Star Wars The Force Unleashed II

Dropped on 10.31.13

Gamestop 
 
Animal Crossing
Assassin's Creed 3
Borderlands 2 LE
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Cheat Code Overload: Winter 2013
Codes & Cheats Vol. 1 2013
Dead Island Riptide
Diablo III

Disgaea D2

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Legendary
Epic Mickey 2
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Halo 4
Hitman Absolution
Injustice: Gods Among Us

Injustice: Gods Among Us LE
Last of Us

Last of Us LE
Lego City Undercover
Madden 25
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
Ni No Kuni
Pokemon Black & White 2 Pokedex
Resident Evil 6 LE
Resident Evil Revelations

Wind Waker LE
Dropped on 9.25.13

Gamestop
Army of Two The Devils Cartel
Dead Space 3
Metal Gear Rising Revengence
Star Trek
Super Mario Bros. Wii U
Epic Mickey 2 Limited Ed
Halo 4 Limited Ed
Hitman Absolution Limited Ed

Dropped on 9.04.13

Gamestop
 
Call of Duty Black Ops II CE
DMC: Devil May Cry
Dishonored
Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider CE       
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Upvote 0 Downvote
[quote name='MasaTFC']romeo, thanks for the heads up on Hitman CE, gonna try tomorrow between clients at work![/QUOTE]


You're welcome. I missed out on any and all guides. I need Hitman CE I just won't pay as much for a guide as I did for the game.
 
[quote name='Romeo']You're welcome. I missed out on any and all guides. I need Hitman CE I just won't pay as much for a guide as I did for the game.[/QUOTE]

yea, I really want that guide as well. went in today at the BB near my office, and they didn't have it:cry:

but, I did take a few guides up just to get a price check. TR CE came up for retail (waaaaaaay too much) but I can confirm that GOW 3 LE and FF XIII-2 CE are .01/not in the store inventory. had a manager guy come over after the girl got freaked out about them not being in the system, and he hooked me up for free!
 
[quote name='MasaTFC']yea, I really want that guide as well. went in today at the BB near my office, and they didn't have it:cry:

but, I did take a few guides up just to get a price check. TR CE came up for retail (waaaaaaay too much) but I can confirm that GOW 3 LE and FF XIII-2 CE are .01/not in the store inventory. had a manager guy come over after the girl got freaked out about them not being in the system, and he hooked me up for free![/QUOTE]


FF XIII is an old drop from a good month back. GoW of course is new.

I would buy these guides at a decent price! I'll never pay $40 for a guide, when often they cost more than I paid for the game.
 
Tried for CODBO, EM2, H:A, and DS3. All came up as "Not available for sale." However, this time was a bit different - the cashier checked the pricing in RSS, and found that they were still listed as retail price, vs. the normal $.01. Looks like BB is now marking these not for sale and NOT changing the price to a penny. Can anyone else confirm this?

Needless to say, looks like this might be the final nail in the coffin for penny guides at BB.
 
[quote name='warboss zorbag']Been that way for a while now bro. Read back the last 6 months or more.[/QUOTE]

I think hes talking about checking the price in the system. In the last 6 months if you took it to a cashier and they scanned it or entered the sku at checkout, it would show up not for sale; however, if you had them type the SKU in the actual Best Buy Inventory System (not the website), it would show up as .01 still. This is how I still got some guides in the last 6 months lol. I think hes saying that even this is no longer the case...:(
 
No go at my local Best Buy. Headed over there at lunch and surprisingly they had not pulled the pennied guides yet(which they always do before they penny them). I grabbed one of the two Hitman Absolution CE guides and headed up to the front with a $20 Steam card as well.

I told them that I wanted to see if the price of the guide had dropped and had her scan it. It was Not Available For Sale. She immediately called various people, each telling her another method to get it to show up for sale, each person incredibly confused as to why it isn't showing up, and each method yielding a Not Available For Sale message. At the 4th call I heard her say "You want me to do that? Okay." to which I look over at her screen(which was in plain sight) and I see it say
Retail price: $34.99
Sale price: $34.99

She hits a few buttons and then says "Sorry about that. I can sell it to you. That will be $34.99"
I politely declined, saying that I was hoping the price had dropped and that it hadn't. I purchased the $20 Steam card, thanked her for her help, and apologized for dragging her through that for nothing.
 
tried to snag an Absolution CE guide yesterday, but couldn't find a single one at 3 different best buys. the first one had FFXIII-2 CE and ME3 standard so i brought them up along with a random blu-ray. the guy rang up the movie first and then struggled with the two guides as they showed up "not for sale". when his manager showed up he asked the employee "i thought we pulled all of those and put them in the back." the manager took the guides and went and talked to another guy, not wearing the usually best buy gold or blue shirt, but he had a name tag on. when he came back he said "today's your lucky day" and let me have the guides. looks like they're getting pretty good at pulling these things early.
 
[quote name='kramer0731']Tried for CODBO, EM2, H:A, and DS3. All came up as "Not available for sale." However, this time was a bit different - the cashier checked the pricing in RSS, and found that they were still listed as retail price, vs. the normal $.01. Looks like BB is now marking these not for sale and NOT changing the price to a penny. Can anyone else confirm this?

Needless to say, looks like this might be the final nail in the coffin for penny guides at BB.[/QUOTE]


:shock:...:bomb:...:cold:...:cry:...:-({|=...
 
[quote name='Bount']tried to snag an Absolution CE guide yesterday, but couldn't find a single one at 3 different best buys. the first one had FFXIII-2 CE and ME3 standard so i brought them up along with a random blu-ray. the guy rang up the movie first and then struggled with the two guides as they showed up "not for sale". when his manager showed up he asked the employee "i thought we pulled all of those and put them in the back." the manager took the guides and went and talked to another guy, not wearing the usually best buy gold or blue shirt, but he had a name tag on. when he came back he said "today's your lucky day" and let me have the guides. looks like they're getting pretty good at pulling these things early.[/QUOTE]

The nice thing about my local best buy is that before they get pennied that usually get Manager mark down to $5 or $10 depending on soft or hard back.

I say usually as there are some that don't get marked down e.g. FFXIII-2 CE guide never got marked down, whereas the Hitman CE guide did

of course this does not include guides that of which they sell out, before the guides had gotten marked down e.g. Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
 
Ni No Kuni get a permanent price drop? It is showing on Anazon currently as $40, without there normal thing where they show its MSRP and the percentage off it is.
 
[quote name='ItsKayJayBee']Ni No Kuni get a permanent price drop? It is showing on Anazon currently as $40, without there normal thing where they show its MSRP and the percentage off it is.[/QUOTE]

1. nice avatar pic

2. I guess youre right. And here I was thinking that game was going to become niche.
 
[quote name='arsenalcrazy8']1. nice avatar pic

2. I guess youre right. And here I was thinking that game was going to become niche.[/QUOTE]

Go gunners!

Hopefully can squeak in to the champions league for next year.

Not sure if I should get Ni No Kuni now or wait for it to go even lower.
 
Just scored Black Ops 2 CE, Hitman: Absolution CE, and Dead Space 3 CE for zilch at my local Best Buy. They had to remove them from inventory and just told me to take them. :D
 
[quote name='ItsKayJayBee']
Not sure if I should get Ni No Kuni now or wait for it to go even lower.[/QUOTE]At $39.99, any sales would put it at $29.99 or lower, so I would wait for one of those. There have been quite a few copies at local stores, so I don't think limited inventory is an issue despite its niche nature.
 
No more penny guides for me either, they're really on top of pulling those things now. I have managed to get 2 free copies of FFXII-2 CE for free though. They've had like 20 for the longest time and they just stuck a 14.99 price tag on them now.
 
I can confirm the RSS doesn't show guides as a penny anymore. It now shows the retail price but I still got super lucky and was able to snag a Hitman CE guide. District Manager was at the store and told me he was in a good mood and could have it.
 
Stopped at the Best Buy in McKinley Mall.
Pulled up this thread to see what I should be looking for. Not a single CE was to be had, but there was what looked to be a whole stack of ME3 guides faced out. I grabbed one and found that it was the only one and was just put in front of Nuni No Kuni.
Took it and a few other things to check out. Cashier said she would have to check on the price since it was "pennied out." A dude came over, took the guide and disappeared. Minutes ticked by. I assumed i was going to have no luck. He finally came back and said,"just give it to him."
Score!
 
Picked up Prince of Persia (2008? Prince has the claw/gauntlet) guide for $0.01 it rang up as $0.01 without prompt so I got that :br: Total Recall (2013) and :br: In Time
 
[quote name='enigma']Just scored Black Ops 2 CE, Hitman: Absolution CE, and Dead Space 3 CE for zilch at my local Best Buy. They had to remove them from inventory and just told me to take them. :D[/QUOTE]


Totally jelly. Those are the exact ones I've been looking for and would pay for. Just not $100.
 
I picked up FF13-2 CE Hardcover guide at my BB for a penny about 3 weeks ago.
I am going to check my local BB for Hitman and Deadspace.
 
[quote name='Kovorkian']Picked up Prince of Persia (2008? Prince has the claw/gauntlet) guide for $0.01 it rang up as $0.01 without prompt so I got that :br: Total Recall (2013) and :br: In Time[/QUOTE]

Reminds me of the 2009 TMNT penny guide I got at TRU a few months ago.

I found BF3 CE, ME3 CE and GRFS at a BB two days ago and got denied. They actually had more than 1-2 used PS2 and PSP games used at that store though which surprised me.
 
[quote name='arsenalcrazy8']I think hes talking about checking the price in the system. In the last 6 months if you took it to a cashier and they scanned it or entered the sku at checkout, it would show up not for sale; however, if you had them type the SKU in the actual Best Buy Inventory System (not the website), it would show up as .01 still. This is how I still got some guides in the last 6 months lol. I think hes saying that even this is no longer the case...:([/QUOTE]

Yes that is exactly what I'm saying. Been following this thread for a while and know the deal. I'll try again at my local BB tomorrow; sometimes when they see the "Not available for sale" message they just give them out.
 
I was able to pick up a Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition for a $0.01 at GameStop without any problems. Oddly enough it was on the rack tagged for that amount.


I also was able to pick up a Battlefield 3 CE from BB. It wasn't there a few days ago so probably the reason why it survived the pull. It must have surfaced somewhere and they put it back on the shelf. Manager was super cool and said I could have it.
 
[quote name='kraftwerks']Stopped at the Best Buy in McKinley Mall.
Pulled up this thread to see what I should be looking for. Not a single CE was to be had, but there was what looked to be a whole stack of ME3 guides faced out. I grabbed one and found that it was the only one and was just put in front of Nuni No Kuni.
Took it and a few other things to check out. Cashier said she would have to check on the price since it was "pennied out." A dude came over, took the guide and disappeared. Minutes ticked by. I assumed i was going to have no luck. He finally came back and said,"just give it to him."
Score![/QUOTE]

I used to hit the 4 stores in our area for like 5 years. Always had great luck every single drop. But I just cant get myself up for even trying to get lucky and have the manager just toss me a guide.
 
I was able to pick up a Epic Mickey 2 CE guide at BB today. SKU has been deleted. Manager took about 10 minutes to finally show which at that point the line in the store was about 10 people deep. She came and said just give it to him just to get me out of there LOL.
 
[quote name='coopscohen']I was able to pick up a Epic Mickey 2 CE guide at BB today. SKU has been deleted. Manager took about 10 minutes to finally show which at that point the line in the store was about 10 people deep. She came and said just give it to him just to get me out of there LOL.[/QUOTE]

Man wish my store is lazy like yours. Mine is always on top in pulling penny guides now. They also have updated tag prices of deal of the day games too.
 
Assassins Creed 3 CE guides are still $6.99 in store at BB. Just picked up two as an investment.

MoH Frontline the game for PS2 is also $.02 at Gamestop for anyone who runs across one.
 
[quote name='xDerekRx']I used to hit the 4 stores in our area for like 5 years. Always had great luck every single drop. But I just cant get myself up for even trying to get lucky and have the manager just toss me a guide.[/QUOTE]

Every guide that was a penny at BB was always found at my stores. I had such a blast getting so many of those things at once. The effect wore off after about the sixth or seventh drop. Now I have a humongous stack of guides in the corner of my room just gathering dust. I really need to get rid of those things.
 
[quote name='OscillatingFerret']Assassins Creed 3 CE guides are still $6.99 in store at BB. Just picked up two as an investment.

MoH Frontline the game for PS2 is also $.02 at Gamestop for anyone who runs across one.[/QUOTE]

You didn't use the current Best Buy GCU coupon deal to get the guides for half off?
 
[quote name='OscillatingFerret']Thanks for reminding me. Luckily I'm still next door.[/QUOTE]

Awesome, hit that up and get $7 back!
 
[quote name='oscillatingferret']assassins creed 3 ce guides are still $6.99 in store at bb. Just picked up two to hoard.

Moh frontline the game for ps2 is also $.02 at gamestop for anyone who runs across one.[/quote]



ftfy
 
[quote name='Romeo']ftfy[/QUOTE]
There were still 5 there marked at $35. If they hadn't sold yet, I doubt they will before they are deleted from the system.

If you look at the prices of the previous AC CE guides, you can see why I got them.
 
[quote name='OscillatingFerret']Assassins Creed 3 CE guides are still $6.99 in store at BB. Just picked up two as an investment.

MoH Frontline the game for PS2 is also $.02 at Gamestop for anyone who runs across one.[/QUOTE]

there are actually 200-300 ps2 games that are .02 at gamestop. If its not on the website, its $.02...

Ive had a lot of fun finding and picking up a BUNCH of penny ps2 games.
 
[quote name='invizibleskratchpikl']Small GS drop

GS 5/22/13

Far Cry 3
Madden 13[/QUOTE]

GS also dropped Codes & Cheats Vol. 2 2012
 
[quote name='Brian9824']Been gone for a while - has best buy not had penny guides in months? Don't see any entry on their list[/QUOTE]


BB no longer does penny guides. The price stays the same in RSS, the item is blocked from sale at the register.
 
It would be really great if a BB employee or a friend of a BB employee would post a list of the titles which are or will be EOL'd or pulled from the shelves. These titles don't show up as $.01 using the normal price check (F10) on the registers any more. A list of those that will be or had been pulled would be great. It is possible that we may be able to strike a deal with a friendly employee or a manager to give us a guide here or there if someone would be able to keep up on the titles. I used to be a BB employee and I was able to keep a pretty good running list of the guides in stock, and I would check daily to see what was being removed from the shelves.

I really enjoyed the 50% off on guides at BB recently and last Fall. Since they almost never go on sale and the Publishers don't let them discount them, it was nice to see BB do this. Gamestop, Amazon, TRU, B&N, Fry's should follow suit. BB needs to do this way more often.

I won't buy any guide at Full Price and most Collector's guides are not worth even 50% off IMO. If I won't buy games at full price, then why would I ever buy guides at full price?
 
I was at my local Walmart today and they had some guides on clearance. I imagine this is a huge YMMV.

Assassins Creed 3 $5
Assassins Creed Revelations $2
Dead Space 3 $5
Devil May Cry 2013 $2
Epic Mickey 2 $2
Gears of War: Judgement $5
Halo 4 $5
Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword $2
Metal Gear Solid Rising $5
New Super Mario Bros U $2
Pokemon Black / White $5
Skylanders Giants $5
StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm $5

There might have been more that I don't recall. I picked up Gears (has a DLC code), SC2, NSMBU and Skylanders. My daughter loves the skylanders guide as it has stickers and a glow in the dark cover.
 
[quote name='KrayzieKMF']I was at my local Walmart today and they had some guides on clearance. I imagine this is a huge YMMV.

Assassins Creed 3 $5
Assassins Creed Revelations $2
Dead Space 3 $5
Devil May Cry 2013 $2
Epic Mickey 2 $2
Gears of War: Judgement $5
Halo 4 $5
Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword $2
Metal Gear Solid Rising $5
New Super Mario Bros U $2
Pokemon Black / White $5
Skylanders Giants $5
StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm $5

There might have been more that I don't recall. I picked up Gears (has a DLC code), SC2, NSMBU and Skylanders. My daughter loves the skylanders guide as it has stickers and a glow in the dark cover.[/QUOTE]


Were there signs marking the prices? Red tagged or hand made?
 
Hmmm. I have to hit the bank after my karaoke gig and there's one equal distances from here in different directions. The one direction will take me to Walmart's plaza. I might hit that one just to check.

I've noticed Walmart has actually been improving their clearance a bit lately. It's not on Target's level quite yet but it's a lot better than it used to be. Just the other day I picked up two Vizio micro USB chargers (that work fantastic with my phone and tablet) for $5.00 each and two 4-outlet remote control plugs for only $2.00 each. They're improving slowly but surely.

This is the outlet they had for $2.00:

3704292.jpg
 
A lot of Wally's have been doing great clearances lately; unfortunately, like most deals there, they are very YMMV, and almost always store-specific. I have been getting some awesome, dirt cheap toys at one of the ones I frequent regularly, though. Always great to hoard away for birthdays and holidays while they're cheap!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top