barc

MS is already testing the XBox 720. Probably to release some late next year or in 2012. I would suspect that there will be a bundling deal for the Kinect since you need to buy Kinect enabled games to use it and there aren't that many of them yet. I'd recommend a wait and see unless you absolutely HAVE to have it. Guy at Walmart said Sunday that they aren't anticipating short supplies (but you never know).

I would think the store ate the cost of the mishap. I've had problems twice at BB where the store's staff screwed up and cost me getting something after being one of the first 20 people in line. Went to the manager both times and told them what happened and both times the manager gave me a similar item at a similar price (first time a desktop PC and second time a laptop). He sold me the items at their regular sale prices and then made up the difference in BB gift cards (basically he made up the difference by giving me free BB merchandise). If you get hosed, complain! The managers are too busy to sort through problems and will throw gift cards at you just to get you out of the store.

Wow, I'm pleasantly surprised that BB is acutally doing something to help their customers.

Last year WM was great. There were three of us though, so that made it much easier. It was a 24 hour WM, so they let us line up in front of the merchandise when we got there the night before, let us use their chairs to sit in and overall was the best experience we've ever had at WM. BB, one of the first to implement tickets continues to stink IMO. They just can't seem to control the crowds and leave it up to the crowd to enforce order themselves until the cops finally show up around 1 hour before opening. Luckily, they offer lots of stuff online now. I don't think I'll ever go to BB for BF again.

I also predict a 2TB external HD by WD or seagate for $79. I gotta get me one of those if my crystal ball is correct.

No doubt about it, WM. We got almost all of our shopping done there. Most disappointing was BB. Man, they really stunk last year.

Agreed. With Sony already looking at the PS4 and MS prototyping the xbox 720 for release late next year, I'd expect a lot of great deals on game systems and games. Also, the new xbox kinect and PS3 move will either be packaged with systems or help drive down the cost of systems to get the new products out the door before replaced with next generation hardware and games. And it was a pre-BF sale at WM last year for an Arcade with $100 GC forr $199. Great Deal.

Just talked to the wife. She's lined up with the $197 laptops (in the lawn and garden section) and has a cart with a few of the other 5:00 am deals in it. She's gotten 3 different stories from 3 Walmarters that she's talked to, so she's staying put by the laptops until someone tells her different. She found a map that one of the managers put down and left on a counter so she knows what's in all the wrapped pallets.

I like JasonAnna09's plan much better than mcmc's. Jason's allows you to get more than one thing while mcmc's make you stay in line and get only that one thing. My wife hopes Jason is right, but taking our 14 yo dd just in case.

I'm in line right now: the line in front of my computer, where I just about finished off my shopping. I'll hit gamestop tomorrow for the PS3 deal and that's about it. There is nothing that is worth sitting out this long for. It's got to be the tradition of doing it for these kids.

To be fair to Jen, if you're paying full price for the Arcade, she is correct. It is probably worth it to go ahead and by the elite. However, as you point out, if you get the Arcade for $100, as many did from Walmart and Amazon, that is a much more cost effective way to go.

The bottom line is, if you buy an Arcade, you can expand it, for less cost, to be like the Elite, except the hard drive is external. You can download anything you want and store it on the hard drive, just like the elite. I just didn't want folks getting scared that they bought the "wrong" xbox. If you buy the Arcade now, you can get the hard drive in less than a week shipped to your house if you buy off ebay. Plenty of time before Christmas.

Yep, that's what they're talking about. There is no modded hard drive, just consoles.

Looks like Pure and Batman Legos. These are the same games as many other package deals for BF. Don't know about the rebate other than what it says (mailed so you'll have to send in the receipt and proof of purchase and wait for the prepaid card). Hopefully it's not for RS use only. Still, not a bad deal and I doubt there's long lines at RS.

That is an elite that you are looking at. Arcades are white, elites are black (or somtimes camo or silver or something else if you get a specially packaged xbox). There is no "wrong" one. There are advantages and disadvantages to both the Arcade (less expensive but no memory to store game plays) and the elite (more expensive but has an internal hard drive to save game plays). You can expand the Arcade through an external hard drive at less cost than buying an elite and have the same box. That's not much of a deal on the elite you're looking at IMO. Unless you are going to store tons of songs and videos on your xbox, you won't need a 250 Gb hard drive. Most folks who have a 20 Gb hard drive don't come close to filling it up.

FYI, you can get an 120Gb xbox elite with two games (Batman Legos and something else I don't remember) for $293 right now at Costco. No lines, no getting up early. They had tons of them.

120 Gb just sold on ebay for $58 with free shipping. If you got the Arcade at Walmart a couple of weeks ago for $199 with a $100 gift card, you could get the equivalent of a 120g Elite for $158. Pretty darn good deal.

And you can watch streaming movies too. I got the disk a few weeks ago. I put it in my PS3 (not an xbox) and stream movies.

I'm confused about all this bashing of the Arcade. Other than the hard drive it is the same box as the elite. You won't get an hdmi cable or upgraded wireless controller (but you still get a lower grade wireless one). Why don't people think it won't play Halo. It plays it just fine. You just can't save many game plays with it since it only has a couple hundred meg of internal storage. If that becomes a problem, you can get an external drive for less than $100.

Yes, you are wrong. Netflix ships the disk and you put it in your PS3 and presto, you're streaming movies.

Never mind Sorry

OK, so the "o PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii - $119.00 plus $40 Walmart Gift Card" is a mistake right? I noticed that there is the same deal except for $199 a few lines down. The second deal is a great deal. The first deal would be an absolute steal.

Don't bother. Walmart just came out and they have 2 top of the line games for the same price and they throw in The Dark Knight blu ray DVD. You can show up after midnight Thursday night/Friday morning at WalMart and be pretty much be guaranteed that box instead of waiting outside all day Thursday for BB. Avoid BB like the plague I say

Target just dropped to number two for me. The TomTom is too good to pass up. And that PS3 package is very nicely priced as well.

Still looks like Office Max for me. No way is Best Buy worth a trip this year. I got the XBox deal at Walmart for the kids last weekend and that was about the only thing of interest in this ad. I guess the rumors regarding the netbooks were off, way way off.