Will it be difficult to buy Grand Theft Auto IV in stores on its release date?

April 9, 2008 10:25 AM

Will it be difficult to buy Grand Theft Auto IV in stores on its release date?

Will it be hard to get in stores on the first day of its release? Will there be lines? What about a week later?

I know you can also pre-order from any number of online sites, but it seems never to be guaranteed that they ship it to you on Day 1.

For Xbox360 if it matters.

posted by poppo to grab bag (13 comments total)

If you want it THAT bad - you should go to GameStop and see if you can pre-order a copy. There's no extra fee or anything, you just pay $5 up front.
posted by gnutron at 10:29 AM on April 9, 2008

We can only speculate.

There's obviously going to be a big rush to buy it, especially the day of. But as opposed to the consoles themselves (which are either much more time consuming to produce, or in the case of the Wii, have carefully controlled supply), games are cheap, quick, and easy to produce.

That is to say, I think it's safe to say that most places will have enough; everyone who can sell the game will be selling it, so at worse you'll have to try a few places on the release date.
posted by spiderskull at 10:32 AM on April 9, 2008

GTA IV will probably be the biggest selling title of the year. In terms of sales, it's this years Halo 3 except GTA IV is multi-platform.

That means you'll be able to walk into most B&M stores on the day of release and it'll be on the shelves. Best Buy and Circuit City will be more likely to have it on shelves while Gamestop and EB Games might just have enough to fulfill their preorders.

I've never had an issue buying a major game on its release date (Wind Waker, Super Mario Galaxy, Doom 3, Halo 2 & 3) and I've never preordered those games. I only preorder if I think a game will be hard to find or if you get an incentive to do so.

However, Gamestop will probably be doing a midnight release for GTA IV and those will probably be for people that preordered. So if you absolutely have to get it ASAP, preorder at Gamestop for $5 and pick it up at midnight on April 29th.
posted by Diskeater at 10:40 AM on April 9, 2008

There's obviously going to be a big rush to buy it, especially the day of. But as opposed to the consoles themselves (which are either much more time consuming to produce, or in the case of the Wii, have carefully controlled supply), games are cheap, quick, and easy to produce.
posted by spiderskull

That's ridiculous, why would Nintendo willfully leave $1.3bln on the table?

As for the question, it depends more on where you will be trying to pick this game up. Seeing as how you're in a relatively densely populated area, you might just want to be the first to get to some of the stores, though I would think there are probably enough stores near you that will be carrying it that they won't all be sold out. As spiderskull said, it's a lot easier to make a lot of discs than it is to make consoles. And I think they are expecting pretty heavy demand for this game. Just give a call to your local Best Buy before you go to see if they still have copies.

That being said, I've got mine ordered online to be shipped on the release date. I'm just hoping it doesn't take too long to get to me, I can't wait for that game to come out!
posted by Grither at 10:42 AM on April 9, 2008

Gamestop and EB outlets might have trouble meeting demand beyond pre-orders. However, big box stores like Target, Best Buy and Circuit City will likely have plenty of copies.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:53 AM on April 9, 2008

I'm definitely not a midnight-release type gamer. Just want to be able to walk in somewhere and buy it on a whim in the first week or so, whenever I've got a little downtime. So far sounds like the consensus is I will be able to find it somewhere (and yes, I live in an area with no shortage of stores large and small)
posted by poppo at 10:56 AM on April 9, 2008

Gamestop and EB outlets might have trouble meeting demand beyond pre-orders. However, big box stores like Target, Best Buy and Circuit City will likely have plenty of copies.

Dead on.

I'm not sure I can think of any time (as in I genuinely don't remember, I'm not being snide) in the last half-decade where a top-tier, heavily promoted game was hard to find outside of the EB/GameStop pawn shops. As the above have said, consoles are legitimately hard to make. Games are just a DVD and they can print those things like nobody's business. Hit a big box store and you won't have any worries.
posted by Nelsormensch at 10:56 AM on April 9, 2008

Sorry to piggyback, but what about price?

What I mean is: if I preorder I pay $60. If I wait and buy it in the few weeks after release, is there any possibility of finding a discount (either online or in stores)? Or is it pretty much going to be $60 for a while?

(I know the answer is "we don't know yet" but just from previous experience of big games. I've never bought a game close to its release date, so I've never paid full price and don't have a sense of when one starts to see discounts or used copies).

I'm not going to want to wait too long, so if it's going to be $60 no matter what, I might as well have it on day one.
posted by lampoil at 11:04 AM on April 9, 2008

If I wait and buy it in the few weeks after release, is there any possibility of finding a discount (either online or in stores)? Or is it pretty much going to be $60 for a while?

New titles are priced by the publisher, not the stores. So, new titles generally retain the same price until the publisher decides to lower its price. It's highly unlikely GTA IV will see a price cut anytime soon (I'm talking, like, years).

However, you can buy a marked-down used title from EB, GameStop or Amazon. These will start showing up a few days or weeks after the release date. With popular games (again, like GTA IV), the markdowns will be small at the beginning of the title's lifespan and get lower over time.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:10 AM on April 9, 2008

Just adding my sense... this is a big game and will have LOTS of copies printed. Everyone at my office has this preordered (one guy since August), but I don't see the need for this one. I remember picking up San Andreas late on launch day, and there were literally hundreds of copies sitting on the counter at WalMart. This will be the same deal. If you're antsy, go ahead and preorder for the peace of mind, but I am sure it will be no problem to find if you don't.
posted by yellowbinder at 11:43 AM on April 9, 2008

(one guy since August)

of which year?

anyway: like the guys above said, I think that you'll be OK at places like Best Buy, even if you don't preorder
posted by matteo at 12:38 PM on April 9, 2008

That's ridiculous, why would Nintendo willfully leave $1.3bln on the table?

If only projected profits always materialized into true profits. Deciding to carry debt or divert cash flow into manufacturing facilities or other high cap costs based on expected supply is risky. You can't print a billion Wiis like you can a piece of plastic. Nintendo's strategy is just very conservative, and it appears to work very well for them (or their shareholders). When you have thin inventories sitting in shelves it is probably showing somewhere in their monthly cash flows that can be diverted to doing cool things, or paying out dividends to shareholders. Sure it possible to manufacture a lot more Wiis, but it may no tbe economical from Nintendo's perspective to take on that sort of risk.

But manufacturing Wiis is certainly nowhere near the no-profit-margins of printing plastic discs. You can go to the billion commodity printing plants in SE Asia and have them bid for it. It is in an obsolete medium in so far as Internet distribution with near-zero costs (really an asymptote approaching the cost of electricity) is concerned.

In any case, no, you shouldn't have a problem. I wouldn't buy used as it is usually only a few dollars cheaper for a game like that and I've had problems with used discs a few times in terms of scratches. Not that returning wasn't simple, it was, but a few dollars more isn't that big of a deal. The used/new spread is incredibly thin on popular, new games.
posted by geoff. at 12:44 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

lampoil: "Sorry to piggyback, but what about price?

What I mean is: if I preorder I pay $60. If I wait and buy it in the few weeks after release, is there any possibility of finding a discount (either online or in stores)? Or is it pretty much going to be $60 for a while?

(I know the answer is "we don't know yet" but just from previous experience of big games. I've never bought a game close to its release date, so I've never paid full price and don't have a sense of when one starts to see discounts or used copies).

I'm not going to want to wait too long, so if it's going to be $60 no matter what, I might as well have it on day one."

There are a some deals for this game in the first few days after release, a few dollars off or a giftcard. Since this is such a big game and it includes multiplayer the price on the secondary market will likely remain high for awhile.

You might want to try one of the bigger games trial sites. You do a couple trials of various offers, make sure you cancel them, and get a game for ~ $5. I don't want to mention specific trial sites as I don't want to be accused of pepsibluing them. There are long, detailed threads about such sites over at cheapassgamer, slickdeals, and other bargain sites.
posted by aerotive at 5:21 PM on April 9, 2008