US Vs UK Gaming price?

Living in England as an avid gamer i have always thought games consoles and technology was much cheaper in the US. I took to the internet to search for some statistics to use to find out if there really is a difference at all and with Google's (hopefully) trustworthy currency exchange rate found some samples from popular online websites. Both using the £ and $ equivalent websites and i found a drastic difference.

First i went to Gamestop, a well known retailer. I based my searches on Watch Dogs since it is a big title newly released at what is considered a high price for a game. I found the US version online to cost $59.99 US Dollars, in comparison to the UK where the game was £49.97 Pound Sterling.

The $ price converted to £ shows a significantly less price, and for a newly released title personally i would consider to be pretty cheap for a game. The £ price converted to $ is obviously a lot more as well by approximately $23/24 more !

Again using the website Amazon, the same results were found for both PS4 versions and XBOX ONE versions, and in fact all the searches i conducted.

these can only be considered a small sample but i think the price difference its pretty clear by now. Even more so when i searched and converted prices for the basic console model.

The 'Console war' when it began showed a huge difference in the price of consoles and at the release. I found a BBC article that covered the initial price difference, this is what a Microsoft spokesman said.

"There are many factors that influence the final price of consumer electronics in different markets," a spokesman for Microsoft says. "This includes, but is not limited to tax, tariff and exchange rates."

Credithttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22868787

This shows that even taking tax into account and all the differences it still shows quite a difference.

(ironically the difference of the cost of a $ to £ brand new Watch Dogs game).

No doubt paying the extra price for the same product is frustrating to say the least, as prices in gaming keep getting higher. The additions of micro transactions are slowly taking over moreover trying to get us to cough up more and more of our money. Begging the question just how expensive will gaming be for some? and will it get to the point where it starts to become not affordable for the masses? Well if the prices keep on changing it certainly looks like those paying in Pound Sterling will be hit harder.

Considering that the average salary in US is around 28k US and 26k in UK,I don't see the problem.

Here is something I don't understand....I have been selling games at wholesale for over 20 years and maybe someone can drop some knowledge on me.

All of the games that are made here in the United Sates that retail for $59.99 cost wholesale around $48.00 - $51.00 dollars.

Yet, these same exact games, when sold to someone who Exports them to South/Latin America gets a discount on wholesale and pays around $38.00 - 41.00...

Yet from everything I have gathered, Games Sell at retail in South/Latin America are selling for $80.00 - $120.00 US Dollars.

Can anyone explain this? Makes no sense to me...then you run into the mess of all the crooked wholesalers taking the games that are supposed to go south and sending the,/shipping them her in the us and making $12.00 a stick instead of the $2.00!!!

Import and Sales taxes add up to 60%+ then add in the retail cut.

But if the consumers are willing to spend a $120.00 dollars for a game then why are they receiving the discount lower than US/UK Wholesale? So they can make 40-50% Margins but the average retailer in UK and US is only allowed to sell games at a 10-12% Margin? Even using an Import Fee & Tax of 60% they are doubling their money while US and UK Game stores are dying.

I'm not arguing with you, Just makes no sense to me!