Well if the bloody games weren't so damn expensive in the first place maybe A HELL OF A LOT more people would buy them new. In Australia we pay an average $90 to $100 RRP for a brand new game. Throw in the current exchange rate with USDollars and Americans would be paying $100 to $110 RRP to buy a game in AU. In AU the damn games industry is just begging for an ever growing used games market when we pay $100 for a new game that the US (and the equivalent money for most of Europe) pays $60 for. And FYI we as a people are hardly any richer in $ than the US and EU. The shipping costs and even government taxes are bugger all in comparison to the prices charged for new games in this country.

OK, so just maybe it makes perfect sense that we have to pay more for games than Europe/Japan/USA. I can live with that for sure. But using the various excuses to justify us paying on average $40 to $50 more per game than overseas is just absurd. THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS NOT THAT WE PAY MORE FOR OUR GAMES IN AUSTRALIA, BUT BY THE RIDICULOUS AMOUNT WHICH WE PAY MORE.

And you Americans think you have it bad with game and console prices! We in Australia are even more worse off. The 60GB PS3 is going to cost $999 which on average converts to about US$740. The Xbox360 is $649 (US$480) and games like G.R.A.W and Far-Cry have a RRP of $119.95 (US$89). Being a fan of GameSpot for ages, I saw the US$399 (AUS$539) price for the Xbox360 long before pricing was established over here and I cant tell you how pissed off I was when I saw our pricing. I mean I knew that it would cost more than $539 over here but marking it up by AUS$110 over what the unit costs in the U.S, is a bloody joke! The reason for the prices Australia pays are not because we are a small market 'cause console prices in the U.K are nearly as high, when other parts of Europe pay close to American prices. If PS3 game prices are any more costly than Xbox360 game prices already are then at least here in this country Sony will suffer dearly while Microsoft reap the benefits.