Is There Value In Console Gaming Bundles?

Steve Anderson : End Game
Steve Anderson
The Video Store Guy
| The video game industry has gone from a mole hill to a mountain in no time flat, Chris DiMarco is your Sherpa as you endeavor to scale Mount “Everquest”

Is There Value In Console Gaming Bundles?

While rummaging through the great piles of gaming news that come out in a day, I caught sight of something that took my notice, and got me to thinking. Specifically, the word about the newest Humble Bundle that's jammed full of Warner Bros. Interactive titles for Windows PC was what turned me to thinking, and the idea of why there isn't this kind of thing going on more often in console gaming.

The Humble Bundle in question brought out a slew of somewhat older titles all in one handy package with a blank price tag on same. Essentially, according to the reports, users pay what they please and walk away with, in this case “Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition,” “Fear 2: Project Origin,” “Fear 3,” and “The Lord of The Rings, War in the North.” Those who pay more than average get bumped up to “Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition” and “Scribblenauts Unlimited.”

While that was quite a coup in its own right, I got an e-mail earlier today from Good Old Games, insisting that, were I to buy at least three games from a list of several for a minimum donation of $5, 100 percent of said donation would go directly to one of several different charitable efforts.

Bundling old games together and offering said games for a low, low price seems to be the province of either PC games or eBay auctions, because I seldom see something like this go for console games. Oh, to be sure, there are some great bargains to be had in console. Both Sony and Microsoft have recently started giving away a couple games a month, and they're not bad games, either. I recently got a perfectly good copy of Halo 3 for the low price of el zippo nada. Several games are up for as much as 75 percent off in any given week—this week for example on Xbox 360 is “Castlestorm” for a meager $2.49, and the Serious Sam series at 75 percent off. Next week will be heavy on cheap Capcom, at last report. But why not the bundles?

Maybe it's a matter of interface. Maybe it's a matter of planning—four games for $2.50 each works out the same as a bundle of four for $10—but why isn't there a bundle on hand? Sure, on a certain level it's a smart idea—you get the games you want, and only the games you want—but there's also a certain feeling of deal conquest that can only come from “I just bought a ton of games for one low price,” a development that we've already seen for consoles in things like Xbox 360's “Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection” bringing together a ridiculous quantity of Sega Genesis games; parenthetically, that's a development that Nintendo could certainly stand given the comparative weakness being shown in the Wii U that's reportedly dragging on profits. But the idea of a huge pack of games for one low price has its value, just as much as a bunch of low priced single titles has.

So is there a value in a bundle for the console? Sure, why not? After all, consoles are seeing bundles on disc form, so why not bring together a bundle that can be downloaded outright. We know digital delivery of games is rapidly gaining ground as the infrastructure improves and more high-speed Internet access makes its way to the people, as painfully slow a process as that may be. It's certainly a development that could be welcome by the gaming public, and anything the gamers want is likely to make the developers money as well.
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