German retailers give out Fallout 76 in bizarre bundles

[Cal Jeffrey]

Facepalm: What do retailers do when a product is not selling and is needlessly taking up shelf space? Drastically slash its price. If it continues not to sell then they find clever (or strange) ways to bundle it with other related products to make the deal seem more attractive.

Retailers in Germany are having such a hard time selling Fallout 76 that they are now giving it away.

GameStop’s German branch was bundling the Bethesda flop with used PlayStation 4 and Xbox One controllers (the offer appears to have been pulled or is over now). The game released at $60, you can now pick it up for $40 by itself. Used controllers are going for about $40, so GameStop was not even bundling it for a markup.

According to Kotaku, German electronics retailer Saturn has an even more bizarre promotion involving the game. It is selling the Fallout 76 Xbox One bundle bundled with Fallout 76. No. You did not read that wrong. You get an Xbox One, a controller, a copy of Fallout 76, and another copy of Fallout 76 (below).

To say that Fallout 76’s reception has been dismal would probably be an understatement. Critic and user reviews have been overwhelmingly negative. The game's sales figures by the end of Q4 2018 were down 80 percent compared to Fallout 4.

Despite how poorly the game has performed, Bethesda has not written it off. In fact, it has pledged to stick with it and support it into the foreseeable future. Whether its efforts will turn things around, remains to be seen.

Images via Kotaku

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78546-german-retailers-give-out-fallout-76-bizarre-bundles.html

 

[TomSEA]

"Despite how poorly the game has performed, Bethesda has not written it off."

I'm sure there's a lot of disbelief this is happening at Bethesda. They're used to anything Fallout racking up massive sales and winning hearts and minds. They're not going to give it up too easily. I'm sure it'll take a few more months and a lot of lost money for them to snap out of it and move on to another single-player Fallout game which is what every Fallout fan really wants.

 

[noel24]

So basically You're getting it for free? So, You can instantly throw it out without regret! Awsome.
In that case, I'll have an used (whatever) without a copy of Fallout 76, please.

 

[psycros]

"Despite how poorly the game has performed, Bethesda has not written it off."

I'm sure there's a lot of disbelief this is happening at Bethesda. They're used to anything Fallout racking up massive sales and winning hearts and minds. They're not going to give it up too easily. I'm sure it'll take a few more months and a lot of lost money for them to snap out of it and move on to another single-player Fallout game which is what every Fallout fan really wants.

No true fan would have turned their noses up at an MMO that was actually good or at least repairable. Unfortunately there's no way you can fix all of Bethesda's mistakes on an official server (and Bethesda would no doubt ban anyone who figured out how). As with Blizzard, this a company that's been trying to wreck itself for years, and it may yet succeed.

 

[toooooot]

"Despite how poorly the game has performed, Bethesda has not written it off."

I'm sure there's a lot of disbelief this is happening at Bethesda. They're used to anything Fallout racking up massive sales and winning hearts and minds. They're not going to give it up too easily. I'm sure it'll take a few more months and a lot of lost money for them to snap out of it and move on to another single-player Fallout game which is what every Fallout fan really wants.

Nobody stops them from making a single player mode now. I bet it will take less resources than making entirely new game. They wont be able to release completely new game with updated graphics any time soon. But they can use assets of 76 to quickly add single player.

 

[Eldritch]

If they are so out of loop that they thought a MMO as broken as Fallout 76, based on an absolutely antiquated engine whose age is showing more with every iteration and that too without singleplayer elements which was the foundation of series, will be liked by fans then I have no hopes of waking up from Bethesda. They looked at Fallout Vault mobile game and thought they can sell any crap with Fallout title. Well, guess what, it damaged the product as well as brand name and continues to do so.
Who would have thought that hype and name alone aren't enough, right? /s

 

[Uncle Al]

No Single Player - NO SALE!

 

[Nero7]

Desperate deals like these are a reason why I still visit those shops.

Got the Master Chief collection for the Xbox One for 5$. Why? The shop had so many copies and couldn't sell them that they just wanted to get rid of it to liberate space for new stuff. But throwing away costs money too so just decrease the price so much that its a deal no matter what.

Like here, get a controler + a free game. Many people who go to Gamestop have never heard of Fallout 76 or its scandal despite being on the internet 8 hours a day.

Other cases were Call of Duty Ghosts and infinite Warfare, also Red Faction Armageddon and Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition. They either gave them away for extremely cheap or bundled them with all kinds of stuff.

Its a relatively common occurance. Sometimes the games happen to actually be pretty damn good.

 

[mongeese]

"Despite how poorly the game has performed, Bethesda has not written it off."

I'm sure there's a lot of disbelief this is happening at Bethesda. They're used to anything Fallout racking up massive sales and winning hearts and minds. They're not going to give it up too easily. I'm sure it'll take a few more months and a lot of lost money for them to snap out of it and move on to another single-player Fallout game which is what every Fallout fan really wants.

Nobody stops them from making a single player mode now. I bet it will take less resources than making entirely new game. They wont be able to release completely new game with updated graphics any time soon. But they can use assets of 76 to quickly add single player.

The issue is that Fallout 76 uses Fallout 4's assets, just with multiplayer