Home » Features » Opinion » $90 USD or $130 AUD: Why I’m not paying the Australia Tax for Destiny [UPDATE: I got pricing a bit wrong!]
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$90 USD or $130 AUD: Why I’m not paying the Australia Tax for Destiny [UPDATE: I got pricing a bit wrong!]

The news that Destiny can now be pre-loaded on Xbox One has extra repercussions than just being plain ol’ awesome. It now means I can cancel my $130 AUD EB Games pre-order and hit up the US-based Xbox Games Store to get the game and all of its pre-order bonuses for just $90 USD.

Yep, all of that extra content, otherwise known as “the reason that I pre-ordered the game from EB Games in the first place”. Access to the Vanguard and Destiny‘s first two expansion packs. An extra ship. All of it.

This news means I can sleep soundly as my Xbox One downloads Destiny — without any extra effort on my part — so I can immediately play it on the game’s release date of 9 September. Best yet, it means I can use my portable hard drive to copy and install the game on each of my Xbox Ones without ever needing to worry about swapping discs in and out.

This new revelation makes it so I don’t have to hope that EB Games gets my pre-ordered game in the mail on time so I can play it on release date like everyone else. If you’ve been burned by that before, maybe you’ve opted — as I did, before I cancelled my order — to pick the game up instead. Well, this means I don’t have to trek into my local EB Games store to collect my game during my lunch break. Like everyone else seems to do in the CBD. That’s always a fun queue to have to join, eh?

In summary: I save tons of money. I don’t lose out on any bonuses. I get to sit on my couch in my underwear and play Destiny without that pesky requirement of actual human contact.

I’ve avoided sites like Ozgameshop and Play-Asia in the past because I once believed I should buy Australian and support our local industry. Fuck that. The bottom line is this: if I can pay around $90 USD — that’s around $95 AUD at the time of writing — for a game that an Australian retailer expects me to shell out $130 AUD for, why would I ever consider doing otherwise?

This type of US store digital purchase is super easy on Xbox One and just a smidgen harder to do on PS4. That said, I think that little bit of extra work is worth saving $35 AUD, eh?

My pre-order is cancelled and I’ve got Destiny‘s Digital Guardian Edition pinned to my Xbox One dashboard, ready to go. Life is good.

Update: I was a bit off on pricing. Now that pre-orders can be taken online, we can confirm that the Destiny Pre-order Edition — which gives you the game and access to the Vanguard only — will set you back $60 USD.

The Destiny Digital Guardian Edition, with two expansion packs included — aka, the one I want — is $90 USD. Still, the savings are still there, as is the convenience. Sorry about the misinformation, at any rate.

Not happy with the apology? Hit me up in the comments, below.


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About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.