It's not quite a $99
Xbox 360, but if this apparent Walmart scan via
Kotaku is to be believed, that $199 Arcade version is getting a $100 gift card promotion going into effect this Saturday. In real terms, that boils down to a $234 Xbox 360 Pro for first-time buyers, seeing as you'll be needing that $135, 120GB hard drive, too. Also listed are a Sony Blu-ray player for $148 (we're guessing the currently-MSRP'd $199 BDP-S360), and a $298 HP G60-519WM, which touts a 2.2GHz Intel Celeron, 15.6-inch HD display, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3GB RAM, and a 250GB HDD -- not a bad followup at all for that
Compaq CQ60. Some interesting spy shots from the
Slick Deals forum seem to give credence to the scan, although we're still playing wait-and-see -- that $100 gift card with the Xbox 360 arcade is almost too good to be true, even if it is just a clever tactic to clear shelf space in the lead-up to Black Friday.
Update: Sure as the sun, an official ad has popped up on
Yahoo's front page. Screenshot after the break.
[Thanks, just4onepost]
posted November 4th 2009 12:29AM
Looks like a good opportunity to replace my ailing day one 360.
Is it safe to assume that this gift card or whatever is for use at Walmart only? It's not like one of those Visa gift cards or something that can be used anywhere? That wouldn't make any sense to me from Walmart's point of view but crazier things have happened.
So, the Xbox 360 is $100, but you have to shell an an additional $100 for a proprietary HDD, and another $100 for a wireless adapter, and you still don't have a BD player? How is this a bargain?
Was this supposed to be a subtle comparison to the PS3? Why do fanboys do this?
It's a bargain if you don't care about a wireless controller, which it comes with FYI, and if you don't need a hard drive or Blu-Ray player. I have three Xboxen that have never played a game and are awesome for playing media from Media Center PCs and Netflix and Hulu, through PlayOn. Just as a media device this is a bargain. If you're into games I guess that's just an added bonus.
Correction:
You said wireless adapter, not wireless controller. My bad. But still, it's a good value.
Those in the know can just get a wireless bridge for $30 if they need wireless.
Is this a deal that they'd price match? I'd like to go buy a 360 today or tomorrow and just walk in for a price match on Saturday rather than having to get up really early and hope there isn't a huge line.
This is part of Wal-Mart's one day sale this Saturday Nov. 7th starting at 8 AM. Here is the page on their site:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=648061&povid=cat14503-env172199-module110409-lLinkSP1
So, what would prevent someone from grabbing this deal, then exchanging it a day later with a PS3, the price difference being made up with the gift card?
The gift card may be tied to the purchase. The details on the gift card seem to be fuzzy. Someone mentioned it's an online thing you fill out. Need more info.
you typically have to relinquish the gift card if you return the original product.
Of course, if you can find a deadbeat manager that'll let you get away w/ returning and keeping $100 that's another story entirely.
Might be worth a shot. I'd love to grab a PS3 for $200. Doesn't Walmart have a pretty liberal return policy for unopened items? If I 'lose' my receipt or say it was a gift wouldn't they take it back? Worse case, I have a spare 360 or I sell it on ebay it for $190.
If I didn't know that Netflix was on the way to the PS3, I would have bought one.
As it stands, even at $99 (excellent price - or rather $199 + $100 of free games or a Wifi Adapter), not interested I have to say.
The product page accessed through the ad link shows the Arcade as having 512MB of internal memory - those started shipping in early June, so you're almost guaranteed it'll be a LiteOn, and if the mfg date on the unit itself is after late July or early August then that LiteOn has a good shot at being one of the less-desirable 83850c (v2) or 93450C revisions.
Although at $100 net, it still wouldn't be a bad idea to pick one up and sit on it 'til the smarties figure out those 2 firmware revisions.
What is the problem with the LiteOn drives?
The newer 2 revisions of the LiteOns aren't hacker-friendly yet.
(My original post was intended to be a reply to Ryan G's "And i wonder what kind of drive they will have in them... :evilsmirk" post - I certainly didn't mean to imply that there's something inherently wrong w/ the LiteOn drives for those who just want to use the 360 as it was intended and keep their mitts out of the internals.)
I've flashed the 83850 (v2) Lite-On's just fine, they're actually EASIER than the V1 7xxxx series Lite-On (don't have to open the drive, no serial port needed). It's the 9xxxx (V3) Lite-On drives that cannot be flashed. I think these started appearing in Xboxes made after September. Besides that they're good drives, have a lot less disk errors than the old Samsung and Hitachi drives
No Tim, you've flashed a v1 83850, not a v2. For the LiteOn drives, there was the 7xxxx and 83850 (v1) which were both flashable, and now the 83850 (v2) and the 9xxxx, both of which are currently not flashable.
The two different versions of the 83850 are indistinguishable from the outside; speculation is that perhaps the v2 (which appeared July/August) is actually 9xxxx in old labeling.
Xbox deal is good. No walmart insight.
- Amir Rosenthal
Even though the arcade doesn't come with a hard drive, can you still put a hard drive in the arcade version?
http://bit.ly/1bsjDO
Yes. You can get cheap ones on eBay.
too bad there's no walmart in NYC.
So wait... if I get $100 gift card with purchase of the 199$ arcade, in essence we can't use the 100$ on the xbox purchase to take it down to 99$ correct? This really means your still paying 199$ for the arcade but just spending the 100$ free dollars on other things at walmart correct?
I mean I can get a cheap hard drive and the like... I just want to use that 100$ gift card on the xbox itself.
Wow, what are the odds...I'm about to pull the trigger on a Panasonic Plasma 42" for the same price as that 46" in the Walmart add. Guess I know where I'll be @ 8:00 am this Saturday :-)
You wont be able to use the card on the 360, but a wal-mart gift card is like probably the closest thing on the planet to cash. Who doesnt need tissue, milk, or an oil change? I've seen wal-mart cards sell on ebay for greater than face value.
I just called my local store to verify stock on the laptop, and the price is only good until NOON.
got one on walmart.com with 10% bing cashback.