Of all the launches we’ve seen this year, the Nexus 4 launch was one of the worst and it was surprising that it played out like it did. After all, this is Google we’re talking about, they are, for all intents and purposes they’re the biggest presence on the web and with the Play Store becoming a force to be reckoned with in amongst the digital storefronts. As the Nexus 4 – along with the Nexus 10 – went live on Play Store sites all across the globe all chaos broke lose, the Play Store buckled under the pressure and would give out server errors and within less than an hour the Nexus 4 was sold out. It was the same story in Europe, Australia and the US went down in about 30 minutes or so. It turned out that Google weren’t prepared at all and needless to say it wasn’t a good launch for the Search Giant.
When it comes to launches outside of the Play Store though, there really hasn’t been any, aside from the launch of the phone on T-Mobile in the states. What there has been however, is talk of the Nexus 4 retailing for far more than it would in the Play Store, raising some serious questions over how much money LG are looking to make on the phone when Google isn’t looking.
This leads us to launch of the phone at Carphone Warehouse in the UK and how much they’re now charging for the SIM-free version of the device. It’s going to cost a whopping £389.95 for the pleasure of getting the device unlocked. Well over £100 more than what it’s going to cost in the Play Store, directly from Google. Something like this is a little hard to grasp when you consider that it’s exactly the same you’ll be paying for however, there is the issue that both Carphone Warehouse and LG will be looking to make money on the device wherever they can, and unlike big bad Google they don’t have the Play Store to rely on for cashflow, let alone billions in the bank. I think this only goes to prove that Google need to sort out their e-commerce side of the business and prevent their phones getting sold at a marked up price, I can’t imagine something like this doing much for their reputation.