M$ forces European retailers to sell Xbox360 in a bundle

[CptStern]

"According to a Norwegian retailer (as reported by Gizmodo), Microsoft's making some peculiar demands during the XBox 360 launch. In particular, each retailer is to get 20 XBox 360 consoles (6 core editions, and 14 premium editions). However, to get the full allocation, they have to ensure they will sell out on the day of release (December 2nd over there)! Plus, each console must leave the store with at *least* two games each."

just an opportunity for price gouging ..plus it puts the consumer and the retailer in an awkward position

more interesting tidbits:

"Is Microsoft marketing like the beanie babies again - using 'Sold Out!' as a way to hype the popularity of their machine? It may appear to be, since Microsoft recently slowed down production of the XBox 360 as well."


http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/02/1826249&from=rss

 

[The Brick]

that's teh gay :| and insanely annoying

 

[Glirk Dient]

Not cool. If I can't get it because it's sold out im gonna murderlize someone.

 

[CptStern]

they're purposefully cutting back on production because shortages = great publicity

 

[KU_]

I hate videogame monopolies.

 

[Bait]

Shortages = Angry nerds yelling outside MS offices in between puffer inhalations.

 

[^Ben]

Slashdot and gizmondo, the perfect biased combination :stinky:

And I hate to break this to you, Sony does the exact same thing with their new consoles and handhelds.

 

[VirusType2]

2075 Microsoft owns you

I often don't know what the hell Im talking about, but I can think of some things MS might be doing

1) they are trying to take over earth

2) they are trying to keep the retailer's price down as low as possible. i mean think about it. The retailers wont be able to charge much more, because the price would be getting too high with 2 games. Once the price gets to a certain point Mom says No way, but if they can take, say, for example, 20 bucks off the price of each game, then you get 2 games for a little more than the price of one right?

3) also they are trying to support whoever took the dive to develop games for it. many people would buy the system and 1 game, and wait untill some more games come out before buying another game. now they are forcing their titles to sell

4) now that we know they are forcing them to sell out in the first day, me and you are like, "dam i have to get it on the day its released or i'll have to wait till after the holidays!" they are trying to get more people to reserve thier system obviously. And that works doubly. think about it, the systems might even get sold out long before the system even gets on the shelves. and when u go to the game store the day after thanksgiving, they are going to be like, "would you like to reserve a 360? only 5 left for the holidays, we've already pre-sold 15" this further snowballs to sell them faster.

5) lets not over look the fact they are forcing retailers to buy 20 or none at all. a game store that doesnt have some xbox360s to sell for the holidays is foolish, so Microsoft just sold 20 systems to every game store already.

And hell, the more people that have an Xbox 360, the less people that will buy a PS3 or Nintendo

Its smart I tell ya. Im thinking Sony wasn't taking any chances and got an early start into Handheld gaming for fear of microsoft was going to do with the 360. They used the Xbox to get recognition and a base of users, they didn't make much im sure.

Just wait untill we have a small PC on our wrists running Windows and taking over the Blackberry, cell phone, and hand-held gaming industry at the same time. Microsoft is like Hal9000. they want to own you

Thier plan is for your home and every electronic and electrical device in it to be controlled by a main terminal running microsoft software. lol