Monday, November 26, 2007

Console Points Exchage Rates

Both the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii have addtional "live" content that can be downloaded via the internet if you so choose to give your console a network connection. Some of this content is free, but most of the content is paid for with "points" that can be purchased on-line or from various retailers.




The interesting thing about a Points Model is that it abstracts the true cost of what you are buying. The live links above (at the time of this writing) put a Wii point at $0.009495 (a little under a penny) and a Xbox point at $0.01186875 (more than 10% over a penny). Of course you would have to calcualte shipping and/or tax (maybe?) into any equation to come up with a true cost. Then you could look at discounts (i.e. coupons) that could be applied to the overall exchange rate.

Wikipedia has taken a good shot at exchange rates based on average cost of Wii and Live points. I would be interested in seeing the cost to the distributer of these cards and the cost of manufacture, because these are surely devaluing the royalty payments the content owners are getting.

Putting together a good deal on points doesn't look to be that hard. Buy.com typically carries the Microsoft 4000 Point card for $48.99 no tax, no shipping. First time Google Checkout uses can knock off $10 anything at Buy.com wich drops the point cost to $0.0097475 which makes buying something like Puzzle Quest (a 1200 point game) to just $11.70 with points to spare. It simple economics--and I'm sure all the video game kids are all about that.

It's amazing that the console manufatures are making their consumers jump through all these hoops. Hasn't anyone learned anything from NetFlix? Consumers like to feel like they are getting a deal not like thier getting ripped off.