Best Buy to push Xbox 360s to people who miss out on PS3

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 13 November 2006 22:06

Your IT - Entertainment

You’ve been standing in line for hours at your local Best Buy store in the US, with cash in hand (or credit) to buy a shiny new PS3 on Nov 17. But as you get closer to the front, the dreaded announcement comes – the PS3 is sold out! Best Buy’s solution? To offer you an Xbox 360 deal instead.

According to a News4Gamerz.com story (who sourced their article from PunchJump.com), Best Buy has a special, time limited offer for people wanting to buy a PS3 once stocks of both PS3 models have sold out.

Although 400,000 PS3s are likely already in US stores, just waiting for the November 17 official sales date to begin to crack open the boxes ready for a PS3-hungry public, with this number much higher than the 80,000 PS3s allotted to Japan, the US has more than double the population, meaning PS3 shortages are clearly inevitable in the US, too.

How quickly new stocks are set to arrive only Sony truly knows, but they have publicly stated their intention to ship 2 million units to Japan and the US by year’s end, meaning an extra 1,020,000 games consoles at least should be being manufactured as quickly as possible, even as you read this article.

But for the gamer (or kid-pestered parent) wanting or needing to buy a new console now for whatever reason might not decide to wait that long after hearing of Best Buy’s offer, which on the face of it seems a good deal.

We say on the face of it because gamers in the News4Gamerz article have already commented on ways to buy an Xbox 360 at cheaper prices than Best Buy can offer. While hard core gamers might know this, some every day gamers (or gamers to be) could well miss this fact, and take Best Buy up on their offer.

So... what is Best Buy’s lure to get you to switch to an Xbox 360 once the PS3s are gone? Read on to the next page to find out...