Changes: Grey market

Latest revision as of 00:34, 28 November 2013

The video game grey market is the trade of systems or video games through unofficial or unintended methods, such as selling on online auction sites. This is typically done when there is a short supply of the product.

The most recent grey market incident was the launch of the Playstation 3 and Wii systems in November 2006. During this time, both systems were severely understocked and many buyers who purchased a system looked to gain a profit by selling the system on Ebay for a higher price. PS3 prices reached an average high of $2,367, a retail mark-up of nearly $1,800.

The grey market can be used to gauge supply issues. For certain cases, there is a strong correlation in monthly unit sales and grey market prices from auction sites like EBay. For example, the Wii suffered from shortages in January 2008 and this resulted in a lower monthly unit sales and mark-up prices of 40%. When supply increased in April 2008, monthly unit sales also increased and correspondingly the mark-up price went down to only 10%.

External links

Video game industry

Sales trends · Holidays · Price cuts · Launch price · Market research · Fiscal reports · Video game costs · Video game delays · Leaks
Dev kit · Attach rate · Gaming conventions · Recession · Rumors · Sales bumps · Casual and hardcore games · Game piracy · Grey market · Controversies · Developer disputes · Video game research · Game development
NPD sales figures · Costs (Most expensive games) · Best-selling games

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+[[Image:Wii_gray_market.png|thumb|300px|Grey price of the [[Wii]]]]
 The '''video game grey market''' is the trade of systems or video games through unofficial or unintended methods, such as selling on online auction sites. This is typically done when there is a short supply of the product.
 The most recent grey market incident was the launch of the [[Playstation 3]] and [[Wii]] systems in November 2006. During this time, both systems were severely understocked and many buyers who purchased a system looked to gain a profit by selling the system on Ebay for a higher price. PS3 prices reached an average high of $2,367, a retail mark-up of nearly $1,800.
-The grey market can be used to gauge supply issues. For certain cases, there is a strong correlation in monthly unit sales and gray market prices from auction sites like EBay. For example, the Wii suffered from shortages in [[NPD:January 2008|January 2008]] and this resulted in a lower monthly unit sales and mark-up prices of 40%. When supply increased in [[NPD:April 2008|April 2008]], monthly unit sales also increased and correspondingly the mark-up price went down to only 10%.
+The grey market can be used to gauge supply issues. For certain cases, there is a strong correlation in monthly unit sales and grey market prices from auction sites like EBay. For example, the Wii suffered from shortages in [[NPD January 2008|January 2008]] and this resulted in a lower monthly unit sales and mark-up prices of 40%. When supply increased in [[NPD April 2008|April 2008]], monthly unit sales also increased and correspondingly the mark-up price went down to only 10%.
 ==External links==
-*[http://kotaku.com/gaming/ps3-grey-market/feature-the-decline-of-the-ps3-grey-market-224984.php Feature: The Decline of the PS3 Grey Market]
+*[http://web.archive.org/20070215122702/kotaku.com/gaming/ps3-grey-market/feature-the-decline-of-the-ps3-grey-market-224984.php Feature: The Decline of the PS3 Grey Market]
 *[http://data.terapeak.com/?query=wii&siteID=0&id=139971&date_range=7&date=2008-06-04&search=1& Terepeak Ebay analysis for Wii grey market]
 *[http://gonintendo.com/?p=46109#more-46109 Electronic Entertainment Design and Research - NPD analysis]
+*[http://www.videogamepricecharts.com/ Video game price charts]
+{{VGI}}
 [[Category:Video game industry]]