K_G

PS2 slim with all the ratchet and clank PS2 games, shotgun, chainsaw, plus the usual sundries...oh, and the USS Sulaco

Granted there some tech that costs money in the board, but if you want to start an whole new device category, you got start out with the right value and price point. When Guitar Hero 1 came out for the PS2, it didn't cost double the going rate for new games on the platform, it was $20 more than the $50 PS2 price point for new games...and while it didn't have a gazillion songs, it had enough. Those two factors were enough for people to take a risk on a new thing. If Activision had treated Guitar Hero like Ride, it would have come out a $100 and have 8 songs and it would have gone no where but the bargain bin like Ride is. If this came out $79 or so, the tone of reviews would have likely been alot more moderate and the word of mouth wouldn't likely have been so strident.

It is worth noting that in the last quarter, almost half of Gamestop's gross profit was related to used products (both games and hardware)...page 15 here
http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?filingid=6654511&tabindex=2&type=html

And while others have pointed out that GS will just lower trade ins values, they can only do that to a certain level before before they will lose business to other venues (ie, if they start offering $15 for an AAA level game that just came out two weeks ago, then people are going to find other venues (say, amazon) or just hold on them...a key motivator for trading in newer games (which other consumers want to buy) is their trade in value...and if they start to lose trade in business to competitors or people just holding on to games/doing trades with family, friends) that's a serious blow to their operations. Sure, some folks just want to dump their old games and don't care that much, but the really valuable segment, the heavy users, is pretty aware of trade in values...this is one reason why GS over the last year or so has shifted to lower overall trade in values but many more trade in promotions that reward multiple trade ins, reward specific game system games trade ins, trading in specific hot games, ect.

This price matching isn't necessarily a mortal threat to GS since anything that sells more new/current games likely benefits GS as well. GS does well because it gets dirt cheap trade ins and sells them for easily 100-125% more than they pay for them and does so in shops with relatively low labor and rent costs. While it isn't great news for GS, as long as Best Buy (or others) don't disrupt the number of trade in handed in to GS, GS shouldn't have any huge problems...they'll just somehow need to make due with merely 90-115% gross margins on used games.

Given that the whole game sells brand new for $30 at Newegg, $20 for DLC content is a bit steep...I think the probability of some sort of 'game of the year' edition that contains the original game, the lost and the damned and other DLC will be bundled onto one game package that will sell for $30-40 tops by the end of 2009 is likely pretty high. Like what they did with San Andreas back in the day. As it is, I'm glad I sold my copy GTA IV in the summer rather than to wait for $20 DLC

Why give the false impression of the ATT way of doing things right at the start with a smooth in home activation....better to know the circle of hell you are entering right at the start.

Total suckage....Hate the font....it is harder to read....And now there is less content per page load...Each post (which also now seem to have much fewer words before a jump is necessary) now takes up almost an entire screen view...wide spaced out Sans Serifs don't do well in floating in a sea of white. This kind of layout reminds me of blogs where they only post 10 things a week, so they try to make it look like there is alot of content by just making it look huge. The previous design was excellent for reading and quickly scanning for stories of interest...The new layout sucks for both. It is fine that you are trying to gin up page views with fewer posts per page and shorter posts before requiring a jump, but don't forget that people still have to want to come to the site and making it harder to read and more time consuming to read is not a good way to encourage that. Personally, I've just taken engadget out of my bookmarks...I felt the quality of the content had been slipping for a while since Peter left and now this layout is enough to push me over the edge. I'm sure I'll pop back in when something important is going on, but for my previous several times a day traffic level...no more....there is no shortage of other sites that cover the same topics.

Jeez, you could have at least picked a photo of Sega game, such as house of the dead...Wartran troopers is Konami machine.

It is worth keeping in mind that while 2 movies are packed in with the hardware, the other 5 are obtained through a mail in offer, which expires on Feb 28 (the hardware has to be purchased by then but you still have a month to mail in the form). So for folks shouldn't hold out too long if they want the 5 free HD DVDs.

For people thinking about picking up a HD DVD player, a pdf of the mail in form is located here
http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/_pdf/perfect_hd_dvd_offer_redemption_form.pdf

Wow, I hadn't realized that porno mahjong games had been released on the wii. While there are some definite trends causing this, one of the biggest ones is likely demographics...there are simply fewer and fewer younger (25 and under) folks in Japan as time goes by. And given that a fair bit of J arcade development has focused on high cost sim/card collecting games along the lines of derby owners club, I wonder if the MMORPG games are starting to eat in that market as well. They would certainly be much cheaper to play.

Wow, $180 of old spice?