Last week kicked off some tempting festive sales on the eShop, with all sorts of titles (mainly those that weren’t in the Cyber Deals extravaganza) having hefty discounts to help us part with our Holidays money. One that’s immediately shot to the top of the charts is Saints Row IV: Re-Elected, which is being shifted with a massive 93% discount.
Normally $39.99USD / €39,99 / £34.99, it’s currently $2.79USD / €2,79 / £2.44, which for a sizeable open world game is rather bonkers. We’ve had multiple readers so befuddled by the discount that they assumed it to be some sort of mistake or glitch, but it’s just a big ‘ol official discount. It’s got another 10 days to run at the time of writing, which ties into the promotional window for a lot of titles that were in the official Holiday discounts that launched last week in Europe (this price cut is also in North America).
The topic of eShop pricing has come up a lot over the years, and aside from Nintendo of America setting some restrictions on lower prices of $1.99USD, there’s been little to no effort to address the discount-heavy nature of the market. Because of the way the eShop charts and trends work (on units as opposed to monetary sales), a way to ‘game’ the store and get vital visibility is to have massive discounts. After all, 250,000 sales at a couple of dollars will likely make more money than practically no sales at full price.
Originally released back in March 2020, Saints Row IV will have had minimal sales momentum in recent times, so even a major publisher like Koch Media can see that it might as well give the game away and pick up any last gasp sales it can – it certainly makes sense.
It’s the latest example of the weird nature of the eShop charts and trends; on the plus side for all of us, a fairly notable retail title is cheaper than a takeaway coffee.
Let us know below if this massive discount tempted you to pick up the game. And if you’re after similar bargains, check out our round up of some of the best games with the biggest discounts on Switch eShop right now.
