Probably, though I wouldn't be surprised if it's also due to the fact that when limited edition pre-orders are canceled en masse those allocations fail to sell. This can include people who cancel because reviews for a game or product were negative before release or scalpers don't get their desired profits or sales.
Yep, they did it over here in the states too, now the delivery fee costs as much as a pizza at coupon price. Thankfully, I live in NYC so I can get better quality pizza for the same price.
If you have a Visa or MasterCard, the likelihood of your card issuer updating expired/replaced cards on file with Amazon for you automatically is actually very high these days. Many merchants, Amazon, Sony, Microsoft, Steam and countless others, these days participate in what's called Account Updater / Automatic Billing Updater that facilitate updates of outdated payment on file with no action needed from the card holder, to improve conversion rates for subscription services and other longer term billing situations like a pre-order.
And that's is probably the reason why amazon is changing to immediate payment. To stop the preorder- get beta (other goodies)- cancel abuse.
As I've literally mentioned time and time again in this thread. This doesn't stop that.
Yeah, this.
That's how it sometimes worked before though really.
Watch this tank pre-orders globally.
I don't even think that has anything to do with it either. It's not like other retailers were immune to it. The fact is it's a byproduct of European laws requiring people to be able to cancel/change their mind. As long as that's a thing, early beta codes are always going to be an abusable system.
I've seen people mention the issue regarding bluray releases. It's definitely not just games.
I dunno, I preordered the Xbox elite controller back in June of 2015 and it didn't come out until late-October that year. I was glad I did too, because I remember these things being hard to find for a while at release.
Ya this is going to change the entire dynamic of sales predictions, watch them reverse when big companies complain they can't get an accurate read on the market anymore.
Whilst I agree with you in general there is the odd exception I want to pre-order. e.g. The Last of Us 2 - I have faith it will be incredible, so I have pre-ordered it.
First of all, you can already pay off an order if you wish on Amazon. There was nothing to stop you from buying the right amount in gift cards and using it on the order. Could they have made that process a tad easier? Sure, but I don't think we should be saying that everyone should have to pay up front.
