Walmart Doing their Bit to Increase 360 Sales - Free games! [Archive]

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Zeus

11-01-2006, 02:33 PM

Walmart has been guilty of bundling in free games with purchases of the Xbox 360 console, each premium bundle now comes with MotoGP or Burnout free of charge.

Wal-Mart is doing its part to increase Xbox 360 sales. Newly available in stores are two Wal-Mart exclusive 360 bundles. For $399.99 gamers can choose between the MotoGP 06 and Burnout Revenge bundles. Each comes with the respective game, one controller, a 360 and a hard drive. This is the exact same price as your average non-bundled Premium System Xbox 360.

News Source: <A href="http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/743/743075p1.html" target="_blank">IGN</a>

starwave

11-01-2006, 03:03 PM

Mystical Itachi

11-01-2006, 03:03 PM

GodsMinion

11-01-2006, 04:00 PM

Damn that sounds nice but...im still waiting for next year new 360s with the updated chip...

For now im just gonna keep saving $$, i wanna buy a Samsung 32" HDTV... :D..soi can be ready for the 360 when it comes out next year

Hopefully the xbox 360 will be manufactured properly by that date. It seems that only self modification with cooler, etc., will be the only option for people who want to keep their systems on for a long time without damaging them. Although there is no concrete evidence that they damage over time with heat in the newer ones, I don't want to take a chance.
I'm also waiting for the price to go down

Scorpion3

11-01-2006, 05:09 PM

Hopefully the xbox 360 will be manufactured properly by that date. It seems that only self modification with cooler, etc., will be the only option for people who want to keep their systems on for a long time without damaging them. Although there is no concrete evidence that they damage over time with heat in the newer ones, I don't want to take a chance.
I'm also waiting for the price to go down

Shhh...be quite. :rolleyes: The 360 doesn't HAVE heating problems anymore, that was all for the consoles made before January 2006. Of course, the same can't be said for burning your energy bill with the PS3, not that many people who BUY the PS3 will care, because they're still living with their parents.

11-01-2006, 05:59 PM

this was common in the xbox infancy too, since sales were so poor and since sales are reportedly worse for the 360, hopefully we will see alot more bundles like this :)

Sepioth

11-01-2006, 07:14 PM

all over the world stores need to resort to giving free stuff away as a packaged deal to sell 360!hahahaaha. damn if its doing bad in japan, now we here are getting free games,shitty games but free games nonetheless. oh well,good luck MS. first blue dragon to sell out 10,000 preorders. it was a success, now they going to package lost planet as a new bundle. lets see how that goes. lol!;)

Question is is this a MS doing or Wal-Mart trying to increase thier sales (and not necisarrilly MS's 360) to make even more money. They just used the 360 bundle as a way to get people to buy it from them as apposed to EB and such.

Reason I ask is because they said at the end of the short article will this bring "OFFICIAL" (key word here being official) MS bundle sets.

The Bat

11-01-2006, 08:56 PM

Question is is this a MS doing or Wal-Mart trying to increase thier sales (and not necisarrilly MS's 360) to make even more money. They just used the 360 bundle as a way to get people to buy it from them as apposed to EB and such.

Reason I ask is because they said at the end of the short article will this bring "OFFICIAL" (key word here being official) MS bundle sets.

I'm guessing that special bundles which are limited to specific retailers would be the doings of the retailer themselves. The bit about official Microsoft bundles at the end of that article seems to be purely guesswork by the writer.

And in response to "all over the world stores need to resort to giving free stuff away as a packaged deal to sell 360!hahahaaha.", this seems more likely to be for the purposes of getting the 360 buyers from places like EB Games and Best Buy, like you said. Why?

- The biggest sales day in the US is the day after Thanksgiving, which is only a few weeks away.

- The big money isn't made on the sale of the console, but on the sale of games and peripherals, which are usually bought with the console.

- It's expected that games such as Gears of War, Lost Planet, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Viva Piñata, and other titles due by Christmas should help sell 360s.

- The PS3 is the only similar system, and that'll be hard for people to buy from any store this season, meaning that more 360s will be bought instead.

- There haven't been any reports of Wal-Mart (nor anyone else, for that matter) expressing dissatisfaction with 360 sales, and no announcements about purchases by the retailer being cut.

In short, if Wal-Mart wanted to clear their excess stock of 360s, all they'd have to do is wait a few weeks. But I guess the troll-bots here will jump on whatever story they can for their bashing. :rolleyes:

Retroboy

11-02-2006, 04:48 AM

this was common in the xbox infancy too, since sales were so poor and since sales are reportedly worse for the 360, hopefully we will see alot more bundles like this :)

LOL its marketing, nintendo do it all the time, you buy a ds with a free game, you buy a gc with a free game.

We call them console bundles, Console + Free Game, nintendo do it, why cant MS?

11-02-2006, 07:00 AM

bavelb

11-02-2006, 07:04 AM

The Wii comes with a game included on day 1. Man, that console must suck.

:o

The Bat

11-02-2006, 10:40 AM

no 5hit its marketing, i thought they were just getting rid of games they didnt want to sell.

The point i was making is they were marketing the xbox with free extra games, pads etc etc because nobody was buying it, you dont see them clambering to make super value packages for consoles that are selling well. As the xbox wasnt and as the 360 isnt.
I dont recall any console officially selling with 2 or even 3 of the systems best games free in the box as a retail package, but the xbox did with its Jetset radio/halo/xxx package a few years ago.

Yessiree, no store has ever bundled a free game with any PS2 or PS1. Nope. That never happened. It never happened with any other popular console either. And it'll also never happen with the PS3 or the PS4. What? Bundle in a free movie instead? That's brilliant marketting that the competion can't easily pull off. :rolleyes:

Retroboy

11-02-2006, 10:53 AM

no 5hit its marketing, i thought they were just getting rid of games they didnt want to sell.

The point i was making is they were marketing the xbox with free extra games, pads etc etc because nobody was buying it, you dont see them clambering to make super value packages for consoles that are selling well. As the xbox wasnt and as the 360 isnt.
I dont recall any console officially selling with 2 or even 3 of the systems best games free in the box as a retail package, but the xbox did with its Jetset radio/halo/xxx package a few years ago.

yup again sure, thats why GC's and DS's come with a free game and the game printed onto the box for god sake:eek:

11-02-2006, 12:08 PM

Yessiree, no store has ever bundled a free game with any PS2 or PS1. Nope. That never happened. It never happened with any other popular console either. And it'll also never happen with the PS3 or the PS4. What? Bundle in a free movie instead? That's brilliant marketting that the competion can't easily pull off. :rolleyes:

i never said stores dont bundle games with a console, although for free is very rare, its always a slightly higher cost for the package.
I mean officially, nintendo have sold the mariokart package with the DS yes, but that package also retailed higher then the stand alone machine, it wasnt thrown in for free. If i recall it was 115 with the game, 100 without, that doesnt compare to MS officially bundling 2 and 3 full games in the box for nothing.

The Bat

11-02-2006, 10:50 PM

i never said stores dont bundle games with a console, although for free is very rare, its always a slightly higher cost for the package.
I mean officially, nintendo have sold the mariokart package with the DS yes, but that package also retailed higher then the stand alone machine, it wasnt thrown in for free. If i recall it was 115 with the game, 100 without, that doesnt compare to MS officially bundling 2 and 3 full games in the box for nothing.

The free game del being limited to Wal-Mart stores would suggest that Microsoft had nothing to do with the decision, at least to me. It would spoil the relations Microsoft has with other retailers to promote their competitors. But if Wal-Mart was able to get a bargain price on those game titles, which may have been rather cheap before being bought in bulk, they have an edge against their competitors this shopping season. Even if the profit made on additional 360 games and accessories doesn't at least meet the profit lost by giving the game with the system, that same person will likely pick up a few Christmas presents while picking up the console. CDs, movies, toys, candy, appliances, bath supplies, or whatever else someone who just picked up a console might want to get.

That doesn't mean that Microsoft won't have good reason to include games in their own bundles. Since the 360 has been on the market for longer, there are several games which are comparable to the better PS3 titles, which Microsoft can include at a cost of only $5-$10 each. Suddenly Microsoft's console is seen as cheaper than Sony's by another $50-$55, without Microsoft losing that much per console. That's not a sign of desperation, it's a tactic of using a strength that you know your opponent can't match. Sony did the same thing by forcing price drops with their PS2 as fast as they did.

bavelb

11-03-2006, 03:14 AM

If I was Ms this holiday season, I'd put up a bundle with Kameo or something. Ive seen saints row bundles and PES6 bundles, but kameo is more christmassy ;)

And yes bundles are a lot more attractive to me then bare bones consoles. 60 bucks on TOP of the 499 you pay for the machine...grrrrr, but at launch its understandable, as you dont have a clue yet what your popular game will be, and all people want something else.