XBox "scandal" hits home.

[AlecWest]

Not only is Best Buy (national HQ) investigating this ... but my state attorney general has opened up a file on it. What a crude marketing ploy and one that deserves to be punished:

http://koin.com/news.asp?RECORD_KEY[news]=ID&ID%5Bnews%5D=5673

And, if this isn't bad enough, Microsoft has its own problems:

http://koin.com/news.asp?RECORD_KEY[news]=ID&ID%5Bnews%5D=1315

[rallynavvie]

This has actually been happening with a lot of retailers. I heard that some of the big online retailers where thousands ordered their Xbox 360s they couldn't fulfill all the requests so they were giving priority to those who were buying accessories with theirs rather than priority to whoever signed up and prepaid first. The same thing was done with the original Xbox and even the PS2 came out. The only reason BBY will get nailed for it is for false advertisement. I don't think I heard about this locally though so perhaps it was only in that area that this happened. The worst part about it is that they waited to spring the news until there were people already waiting in line for them.

[thevoelk]

Not that it really matters now, and it won't change the situation, hasn't every bundle of XBox and PS2 been in a different packaging? I've never bought one before, but I always was under the impression that if, for instance, you bought the Halo XBox bundle you got everything in one box? Reading the article, it doesn't sound like it was sold that way. It sounds like BB basically wouldn't let you check out unless you had picked up 3 games and extra controller.

[Conquest10]

While I feel its wrong what they did, Come on, who was going to buy this system with NO games?

[thevoelk]

I see your point, but what if:

Parents buy the console for thier kid(s), and the grandparents, aunt and uncles, etc buy the kid(s) a game or two?

That's probably the only situation I can think of that goes against your point (not trying to argue). Since the article didn't say or show pictures, does anyone know if BB chose the games in the bundle, or did they jsut limit it to you had to buy X number of games (and/or a certain amont of accessories) ?

[rallynavvie]

If it's anything like the other bundle scams they probably had them buy an extra controller, memory card, and something else like a hard drive.

[shelbyGT]

The bundle thing isn't a MS issue, sounds like a retailer problem.
And the 14 million recall link isn't exactly correct either. You just had to go to the xbox website, enter in your serial number from your xbox and they sent you out a new power cord. So... yeah. The article states that, but this has been around for some time (notice the february 2005 post date). I've had my new cord for quite some time.