What's up with all the UPC hole punched PSP games?

Vinny

Vinny

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I've been curious about this, but has anyone else noticed a lot of PSP games with hole punches in the case UPC?

This appears to be isolated to niche games but I can't say for sure. I've received about 4-5 PSP games in the last few weeks and every single one has the UPC hole punched (for the record, the games were Wild Arms XF, Hexyz Force, Riviera, Ragnarok Tactics and Persona 2. It was just the hole punched in the UPC on the insert, the case itself wasn't damage. Two of the games I received (XF and Riviera) were actually hole punched but otherwise, looked factory sealed.

I looked on eBay and I've also noticed a lot of people on eBay listing PSP games noting that there is a hole punch in the UPC.
 
The only games I've ever had with holes punched in the UPC were review copies from publishers, though that didn't include Atlus games since they sent them out on debug UMDs or PSN codes for me.
 
[quote name='Vinny']I've been curious about this, but has anyone else noticed a lot of PSP games with hole punches in the case UPC?

This appears to be isolated to niche games but I can't say for sure. I've received about 4-5 PSP games in the last few weeks and every single one has the UPC hole punched (for the record, the games were Wild Arms XF, Hexyz Force, Riviera, Ragnarok Tactics and Persona 2. It was just the hole punched in the UPC on the insert, the case itself wasn't damage. Two of the games I received (XF and Riviera) were actually hole punched but otherwise, looked factory sealed.

I looked on eBay and I've also noticed a lot of people on eBay listing PSP games noting that there is a hole punch in the UPC.[/QUOTE]

Could also be former Sony employees but they usually get slashed bar codes.
 
[quote name='Vinny']I've been curious about this, but has anyone else noticed a lot of PSP games with hole punches in the case UPC?

This appears to be isolated to niche games but I can't say for sure. I've received about 4-5 PSP games in the last few weeks and every single one has the UPC hole punched (for the record, the games were Wild Arms XF, Hexyz Force, Riviera, Ragnarok Tactics and Persona 2. It was just the hole punched in the UPC on the insert, the case itself wasn't damage. Two of the games I received (XF and Riviera) were actually hole punched but otherwise, looked factory sealed.

I looked on eBay and I've also noticed a lot of people on eBay listing PSP games noting that there is a hole punch in the UPC.[/QUOTE]

These are games which were either originally sent out for free, or were marked as being unsold and destroyed, and a credit claimed. It is similar to books that have the cover torn off. Sometimes, rather than paying to ship them back, a publisher will just order them destroyed.

Either way, the point is to damage the product so it is clear that it was never sold. No money went back to the developer/publisher for that copy.
 
Well, the odd part is that the shrinkwrap is un-damaged. The games look perfectly factory sealed.

If these are supposed to be destroyed by the store, I doubt the stores could do such a superb job of re-sealed them. I'm guessing they're promo copies then. But I'm surprised as to why I've never seen this anywhere else but on PSP games.
 
[quote name='Vinny']Well, the odd part is that the shrinkwrap is un-damaged. The games look perfectly factory sealed.

If these are supposed to be destroyed by the store, I doubt the stores could do such a superb job of re-sealed them. I'm guessing they're promo copies then. But I'm surprised as to why I've never seen this anywhere else but on PSP games.[/QUOTE]

I'm a member of on.Playstation and I've gotten a couple :ps3: games that had hole punches in them, but most of the games I've received have their barcode slashed.
 
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