When is the best time to buy a bargain?

I've been asked by a couple of readers when is the best time to buy a great game at a bargain price so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the subject.

Buying a game before, on or soon after the release date is the worst time to snag a bargain. Whilst some retailers may offer a pre-order discount you'll still be paying top dollar for a new release.

Usually, within a month or two the price for a game will have dropped. Note this doesn't always happen. Big franchise titles will usually sell well at full price for longer.

Typically, 12 months after a release is the best time to buy the best games at bargain prices as retailers will want to shift stock. Big online retailers like Amazon are great sources of cut price games and ideally you want to snag that killer game before it vanishes from the big retailers' stock or appears on the Classics label.

Once a title has gone from general distribution it will usually be found only in smaller retailers who will be looking for a higher sales price. Once a title is published on the classics label it may well cost more than it did when retailers were offloading their leftover stock of the full price version. Margins on classic label titles are much smaller so retailers are unable to discount product as heavily. Also, not all games make it to a budget re-release.

This is general guidance only. Some titles will always fetch a higher price than others but there is such a huge back catalogue of great games for the Xbox 360 that you really don't need to pay full price for a new release.