Xbox 360, Bundles, and Delayed Releases.

[Shockeye]

Can you believe this shit?

http://www.gamestop.com/productmerch.asp?groupid=310

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/categories/systems/xbox360/

That's right. No $299 system, no $399. If you want an Xbox 360, you're going to have to pony up at least $600.

Fuck you. Fuck you in the goat ass.

[Merusk]

Knowing you're going to be the only game in town for a good 6 months seems to make you cocky.

The sad part is, I can't blame them.  There's plenty of people who will eat this shit up.

[stray]

Hah. Seriously, it's time to stop caring about what Microsoft brings to the console world. Even if the 360 was superior and had good ideas behind it, they're still a fucking joke. They had a good run, but really, that was just a fluke. At the very least, they're not as big of a player in the console market to think that they have this kind of leverage.

I'll be glad to see them pull out after this run and Sega reclaiming it's rightful place.

[MrHat]

Is there even in savings in the bundle?  And I feel this is more EBStop than it is Microsoft.

[Shockeye]

I just got off the phone with both EBGames and Gamestop. Here's the deal.

In-store you can preorder the $299 or $399 system, however, you will not get it until the mythical "2nd shipment" for which there isn't a date. If you want an Xbox 360 as soon as it's released, you have to buy a bundle which starts at $600 for EBGames and $700 for Gamestop.

Enjoy your $600 Xbox 360 schild, because you'll be the only person playing it.

[Fabricated]

Wow, looks like I won't be touching a 360 for a while.

[Strazos]

As soon as I heard you had to pay extra for a HDD I decided against getting a 360.

Nintendo Revolution, you're our only hope.

[Margalis]

Is there even in savings in the bundle?  And I feel this is more EBStop than it is Microsoft.

That's the funny thing about bundles...basically no savings.

"It's like buying them all separately...only you have to!"

I wonder if all those games are actually going to ship on time. The XBox is looking more and more pathetic. $50 for a controller? $40 for a memory card? $12 for a battery and another $20 for a glorified battery charger?

Seriously...$32 for a battery plus charger.

The EB "core bundle" is $600 for the CORE FUCKING SYSTEM. You know, the sucky one. Let's pile on some bad value onto the already bad value!

And all the games are $60. Kameo, a reject Gamecube game, 60 bucks.

Zelda is going to be better than all the 360 launch games combined anyway.

[Signe]

We mostly buy everything... but we won't be buying that!

[Fabricated]

So um, is there any other place that will be selling just the 360?

[MrHat]

So um, is there any other place that will be selling just the 360?

Amazon I think.

Walmart.

[Signe]

I looked at Amazon and it doesn't seem to be available to order yet in the US.  It is available in the UK as a single unit, however.

[schild]

I asked at Frye's today. November 2nd I should be able to buy mine in store at 9am for $399.99 with whatever games I want. $600 my cock.

[Margalis]

I asked at Frye's today. November 2nd I should be able to buy mine in store at 9am for $399.99 with whatever games I want.

So...no games?

Considering that these games have to go gold in 6 weeks or so and there has been basically nothing as far as hands-on play for most of them, I suspect a rash of mediocre rush-jobs. I'm sure they're all just XBox games with some new shaders thrown on.

[Morfiend]

I will speak for myself and Haemish when I say:

"FUCK YOU IN THE ASS YOU CUMGUZZLING SHITBAGS NO MONEY HAT FROM ME!"


Any how. $700 for a fucking console is insane. I agree with schild, Fry's here I come.

[SurfD]

Be glad your not Canadian.   At those prices, I could buy a PS2, Gamecube AND XBox and still have change leftover......

[Roac]

Yeah.  See, I think I'll stick to my PS2 and GC.  There are still plenty of good games from '03 and '04 that I haven't played yet that I'd like to try, and they only cost me < $20.  And by this Christmas, a good bit of '05 will be that cheap too.  One 360, or 30 console games.  Hmm.

[Shockeye]

I asked at Frye's today. November 2nd I should be able to buy mine in store at 9am for $399.99 with whatever games I want. $600 my cock.

Except the line starts at 3pm two days before.

Oh wait, you have nothing but time.

[shiznitz]

The last company that tried to price a new console over $299 was 3DO. There is a demonstrable step function of price elasticity at the $300 price level. The curve is not smooth. The step function has probably even worsened since the 3DO debacle since there are a lot more alternatives and those alternatives have a shitload of games for under $30 now.

For those too young to remember, Trip Hawkins, the founder of EA, left to start 3DO. 3DO tried to break into the console market with a premium priced machine. There is a good write-up here. Bottom line, no one would pay $700 for game console so the company morphed into a software developer and eventually went bust.

[Miasma]

Elder Scrolls IV is coming out on the PC right?  Good, good.  I dodged an expensive bullet here.

[Shockeye]

Elder Scrolls IV is coming out on the PC right?  Good, good.  I dodged an expensive bullet here.

But I'm willing to bet the PC version will show console limitations.

[Murgos]

Elder Scrolls IV is coming out on the PC right?  Good, good.  I dodged an expensive bullet here.

But I'm willing to bet the PC version will show console limitations.

Yeah, um I am actually pretty curious about how they are going to handle the no hard drive on certain models of X-Box thingie.  One of the things about Morrowind was that your saves were persistent.  Kill everyone in an area (like say a dungeon) and everyone stayed dead and objects remained where you left them.  It would suck, a lot, if you had 'save points' and a non-persitent world.

[Shockeye]

Elder Scrolls IV is coming out on the PC right?  Good, good.  I dodged an expensive bullet here.

But I'm willing to bet the PC version will show console limitations.

Yeah, um I am actually pretty curious about how they are going to handle the no hard drive on certain models of X-Box thingie.  One of the things about Morrowind was that your saves were persistent.  Kill everyone in an area (like say a dungeon) and everyone stayed dead and objects remained where you left them.  It would suck, a lot, if you had 'save points' and a non-persitent world.

Since they've come out and said you won't need a hard drive to play Oblivion on the 360, I'd expect some issues with persistent saves.

[Rasix]

Elder Scrolls IV is coming out on the PC right?  Good, good.  I dodged an expensive bullet here.

But I'm willing to bet the PC version will show console limitations.

Honestly, Morrowind probably would have been a lot better with some console limitations.  Plus, 360 has a decent amount of RAM, so maybe they can refrain from making little areas with massive load times.

That being said, I'm not buying a next gen console for some time.  Fuck, I thought my PSP was expensive but this shit is just crazy.  If I'm spending $400 bucks on a console, I better walk out of there with one if not two games.  And that's all this crap is to me, it's a gaming console.  I have DVD player, I have a PC, I don't need a stupid console to be those things for me.

[Signe]

I hope it's not the neverending game again.  Don't get me wrong... I WANT my games to last for some time.  But Morrowind never ended for me.  It went on and on, endlessly, forever... much like I am right now.  It didn't matter how much I cheated, that game never stopped and I never finished it, even with a character fully edited to God-like.

[Pococurante]

And so consoles continue their march to edge out PCs as game platforms... 

Consoles are still too proprietary and badly marketed.  Though of course that could be Gates' plan... discredit the consoles, sell more copies of Vista 2010 over Dell Alienware killers!

[Miasma]

I hope it's not the neverending game again.  Don't get me wrong... I WANT my games to last for some time.  But Morrowind never ended for me.  It went on and on, endlessly, forever... much like I am right now.  It didn't matter how much I cheated, that game never stopped and I never finished it, even with a character fully edited to God-like.

I remember being appalled at how much time I was spending playing Morrowind so I decided to sabotage myself by cheating to see the ending immediately ( so that I would stop spending so much time playing ).  I no-clipped straight into the final dungeon with a god mode character and found out that it was impossible to kill the head boss without the quest received weapon and such.  The prick actually said something like "I can't believe [whoever] sent you here unprepared".

So I had to turn off the cheats and finish the very long story arc.  Then I kept playing, even after seeing the ending, trying to uncover all of the map, looking into the vampire thing, and seeing if I could kill that other god.

[Toast]

What's up with all the shock and outrage over bundling by major sellers at launch.

Were you in a cave when the PS2 launched?

[Shockeye]

What's up with all the shock and outrage over bundling by major sellers at launch.

Were you in a cave when the PS2 launched?

I can't remember that far back. Beer.

[Toast]

I remember it because I had to buy one of the PS2 bundles. There's a funny workaround where you can return your unopened bundle games to places like Best Buy for store credit. That's what I did, and it worked out.

[Jamiko]

What? You can't afford $1200?

http://gamestop.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&product%5Fid=B020253C

[Big Gulp]

What? You can't afford $1200?

http://gamestop.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&product%5Fid=B020253C

I refuse to step foot into Gamestop again after I noted the fact that their PC games "section" is literally a 5'X3' island off in the corner of the store.  Go fuck yourselves, I guess I'll head off to Best Buy or CompUSA.

[Jain Zar]

Haven't we learned anything?

Never buy a new system till after the first or second price drop and when they actually start bundling software with the system.  Because by that time the first set of titles are mostly budget priced, and there are some games worth buying.

The first year of a console's life is mostly for people with more money than sense.  Its bragging rights only.  Though why one would want to brag about owning a system first and paying more cash for it is beyond me...

[schild]

I refuse to step foot into Gamestop again after I noted the fact that their PC games "section" is literally a 5'X3' island off in the corner of the store.  Go fuck yourselves, I guess I'll head off to Best Buy or CompUSA.

That's probably more space than it deserves in those stores.

[Fabricated]

Half of Morrowind's fun were the mods.

The Xbox version will not be moddable, therefore, it will be much less fun in the end. Go buy a GeForce 7800GTX, you'll be better off.