Games

Americans: Buy Your Games From Canada

By Eli Green
October 26, 2008 - 08:00

In early August I made the case that Canadian gamers would have to purchase whatever games they wanted quickly, before retailers began marking their prices back up due to the slightly lower Canadian Dollar. Much to my surprise, the Dollar's drop did not lead to retailers instantly hiking their prices back up to their former state. Instead, the prices remained, even with the Dollar sitting five cents below the American Dollar.

Today, the Canadian Dollar is valued at over 20 cents less than the American Dollar (one Canadian Dollar is worth approximately .782 cents American). With the Canadian Dollar at a low it hasn't seen in about three years, it is, once again, surprising that video game retailers haven't begun raising their prices to the old formula . Even more astounding is that a number of media outlets are now saying that the price hike won't happen at all, or at least not for a while. How they have come to that conclusion is beyond me, but I am certainly fine with paying less to purchase my video games. I'm not complaining. I suppose it is possible that most analysts are expecting the Canadian Dollar to bounce back once this major market crisis is resolved – whenever that may be – but since I am not an economist/analyst or anything similar, I can only go by what I've been seeing and what I've been hearing.

Of course, I'm not taking any of this from an economist's perspective in the first place. I'm coming from the consumer's perspective, and what's more important to most

consumers than a good deal on the products they are already looking to purchase? With the American Dollar back above the Canadian Dollar, Americans have the kind of buying power they haven't had in some time, especially with video game prices being the same in Canada and the U.S. With the holiday season rolling in, this means that Americans, at least those living near the border, can get some great deals on most, if not all video games.

This is essentially a reverse situation of my original complaint against retailers who had not changed their prices to reflect the Canadian Dollar's rise last year. Since retailers had not dropped their prices to reflect the higher value of the Canadian Dollar, Canadian gamers were paying a higher price for a product that was worth about 10 dollars less. With both Dollars at parity, Canadians were paying $59.99 USD for games that were valued at $49.99 USD, $69.99 USD for games that were valued at $59.99 USD and so on. The price difference between consoles was even worse.

Now that the Canadian Dollar has dropped so drastically, the situation is essentially reversed. Canadians are still getting the same great prices from after the retailers dropped their prices to reflect higher Canadian Dollar, but for Americans, everything costs approximately 20 percent less. For instance, an American purchasing a recently release, regularly priced Wii game in Canada will pay $49.99 CAD, but because of the current rate, that means that they are paying approximately $39.13 USD. A recently released, regularly priced Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 game usually costs $59.99 in both Canada and America. An American purchasing that game in Canada will be paying approximately $46.95 USD. That comes out to a savings of about 10 dollars or more per game.

The deals get even better for the consoles themselves. An Xbox 360 Arcade would cost approximately $156.52 USD instead of $199.99 USD in America, an Xbox 360 Premium/Pro 60GB would cost approximately $234.79 USD instead of $299.99 USD and an Xbox 360 Elite or Playstation 3 80GB would cost approximately $313.06 USD instead of $399.99 USD. The only things still worth purchasing in America are Xbox 360 accessories, subscription cards or Microsoft Points cards, as those prices were not lowered to reflect the higher Canadian Dollar.

If you live near the Canadian border and are looking to get some good deals on video games for your holiday season shopping, it's probably going to be well worth the trip. The only game that doesn't have this advantage is the Guitar Hero World Tour bundle. The Game Only version does.

Happy Shopping.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12