GTA IV Raises Classic GTA Prices on Xbox & PS2

Most of the world has heard by now that Grand Theft Auto IV came out April 29th and it was just announced that in the first week the game sold 6 million copies worldwide. The number of games sold for the 360 and PS3 hasn't been announced yet but so far Xbox 360 owners have been buying more of the classic GTA games than Playstation 3 owners. Prices for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, GTA Double Pak, and GTA Trilogy have increased more on Xbox than Playstation 2.


Buying all three older Grand Theft Auto games released on Xbox would cost $76 now instead of $64 in March, an 18% increase. Buying the same Playstation 2 GTA games would cost $33 now and were $30 in March, which is an 10% increase. If you look at all the PS2 GTA games, including the ones that were not released on the Xbox, you see only a 3% increase from March to May. During this time of year video game prices usually go down.

This difference is either caused by increased demand, limited supply, or a combination of the two.

On the supply side the Xbox game supply is limited while the PS2 supply can increase. The Playstation 2 is still around and retailers are continuing to sell new games. You could find many of these PS2 GTA games brand new at stores. This stops the used prices from increasing very much because the supply can increase too. Xbox games on the other hand are not as easy to find new. Many retailers stopped selling them so the supply of these games is static.

In terms of demand, the Xbox 360 has sold more consoles than the Playstation 3. Assuming the game sells the same proportionally on both systems there are more GTA IV 360 owners. Which means there are more 360 owners who are looking to play the classic GTA games.

Below are the side by side price comparisons for each Grand Theft Auto game on Xbox and PS2. Click the charts to see the most recent prices.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Comparison

Grand Theft Auto Double Pak Comparison

Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Comparison

The Xbox prices are more expensive than the PS2 for every Grand Theft Auto game. And Xbox Trilogy for Xbox is somewhat of a rare game now, selling for more than the initial retail price.

Playstation 2 Grand Theft Auto Games Not Released on Xbox

Call of Duty 4 Doesn't Make People Want to Play Originals

Call of Duty 4 was released for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo DS this past month and the official sales numbers came in showing that CoD4 for 360 was the best selling game of the month. It sold 1.57 million copies in November on the Xbox 360. With 1.57 million people buying the 4th iteration in the Call of Duty series did many of them go out and buy the first three games? And did it affect the prices for those games?

The charts below show the historic prices of Call of Duty games on Xbox during 2007.




(Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 3 were released on Xbox 360 too but our site doesn't have enough price history to see any trend at this point).

None of the games show a large increase in price after Call of Duty 4's release in November. The original Call of Duty had an increase from about $3.00 to $5.00, but this is less than the average video game's price increase in November and December. The original Xbox Call of Duty games are on the backward compatibility list, so Xbox 360 owners can play them but there doesn't seem to be any increase in demand. This is in complete contrast with the original Halo games when Halo 3 was released. Those games spiked in price right before Halo 3 was released.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Halo 3 Fans Get Nostalgic for the Original

Every gamer knows that Halo 3 was released for Xbox 360 on September 25 because it was almost a holiday in the gaming community. It sold 3.3 million copies in the September alone. A large number of these millions of buyers decided to prepare themselves for Halo 3's release by playing the original again. Prices for the original Halo went up almost 30% in September, going from $7.15 in August to $9.14 in September.

Plenty of gamers must have gone nostalgic after playing Halo 3 too, because the prices just kept on increasing in October. Going up another 10% during October to almost $10. But just as quickly as the price went up, gamers appetite for the original faded and the price dropped back down in November.

Moral of the story: If you going to relive your old gaming memories, buy it before everyone else does. You'll save a few bucks.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Playstation 2 vs Gamecube vs Xbox - Used Game Prices

Fanboys love to debate the merits of their favorite systems. Everything from graphics, online play, total sales, third-party game selection, and overall game selection are argued about. I’m adding another coal to the fire: Which games keep their value better? PS2, Gamecube, or Xbox?

Below is a table of the average release price and today’s price for each system.

System	# of Games	Avg. Release Price	Avg. Used Price	% of Original Price
PS2	855	$41.21	$9.23	22.4%
Gamecube	455	$41.71	$10.72	25.7%
Xbox	565	$41.29	$5.83	14.1%

The average release price is pretty much the exact same for each system, but the average used game price today is much different. Gamecube games have kept 26 percent of their value, slightly ahead of the Playstation 2 at 22 percent. The Xbox is substantially lower at 14 percent.

I don’t know for sure why these differences exist, but I imagine the Xbox prices are lower partially because bootlegging games on the system is easier (and more popular) on the Xbox than the PS2 or Cube. If a person can copy their friend’s games to their modded system they have no need to pay for the used games.

Below is a graph of the average prices for each system’s games on a daily basis through 2007.

Playstation 2’s prices have stayed much higher in the past seven months than the other two systems. PS2 games lost about 17 percent of their value from Jan 1 to July 13, while Gamecube and Xbox both lost about 30 percent.

This is because the Playstation 2 is still alive and ticking and hasn’t been completely kicked to the curb by Sony, like Nintendo and Microsoft did with their systems. The buyers of those nearly 200,000 PS2's that sold last month have to buy something to play on it. And some of them inevitably buy used games, keeping the prices quite a bit higher.

For now, the Gamecube fanboys can rejoice. The Cube reigns supreme as the system with the games that keep their value the best. But I think the trends in the graph will continue and PS2 prices will eventually pass the Cube's and PS2 fanboys will have the last laugh. Sorry Xbots, your system doesn’t win this round.

(Side Note: I only used games released before 2007 for this analysis so the PS2 doesn't get any unfair advantage by having more newer games in the data)

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com