Mega-chain Best Buy is sending $50 gift cards to customers who bought HD DVD players or attachments from its US stores prior to Feb. 23 (coincidentally, for our readership, the date Microsoft declared the format dead to the company). CNN reports most customers won't have to do a thing to receive the card as they'll be identified through the Reward Zone program, service plans or online purchases. If you're a customer who won't be identified in this manner, just grab a receipt (you do keep those, right?) or provide your credit card info to the company for proof of purchase. Gift cards will be sent out by May 1.

Circuit City provided a similar deal earlier this month to recent HD DVD adopters by allowing them to return the product if it had been purchased within 90 days. Both Best Buy and Circuit City's online trade-in programs (run by the same company) will allow you to unload your player beginning March 21. Before anyone thinks they're being witty, only HD DVD players can be returned for store credit, you're not getting $50 per movie disc purchased. Although this format war was in no way these retailer's fault, it's very nice to see them taking care of customers left out in the cold.

Following an apparently successful ten-store test program started nearly a year ago, Circuit City has decided to broaden its used game sales, according to SmartMoney. No word on how many new stores will be adding a used games section or how quickly the expansion will roll out, but Circuit City Vice President Irynne MacKay said the company wants to be "competitive on pricing." That's a relief. We were worried they wanted to gouge us.

High margin used game sales could help the struggling electronics retailer, whose sales fell 11 percent last year in the face of competition from Best Buy (which, incidentally, was also testing out used game sales at one point). The company is also toying with gaming tournaments, a 10% off "Gamer Savings Club" (with a $20 annual fee) and a new store layout that prominently features gaming kiosks. That all sounds well and good, but we'd recommend caution with the placement of those Wii kiosks. There's nothing worse than an overzealous Wii Sports player knocking over an innocent customer looking at big screen TVs.

An "employee of Circuit City" dropped this clip in our tip box about an alleged sale for the PlayStation 3. The flyer shows that Circuit City is dropping the price of the PS3 by $100 for the week of July 15. We contacted Sony to ask how they felt about the price drop and they told us, "Circuit City hasn't announced any price drop on PS3, so we have no comment." To be clear, despite the collective game consciousness' longing for a PS3 price drop and its possible announcement at next week's Min-E3 ... this is merely a clip of an alleged flyer which shows a week long sale at Circuit City for the PlayStation 3.

Now, if somebody happened to get their hands on the whole flyer, we'd have something to go back to Sony with. Don't get us wrong, this plot is thick like cheddar soup. Have we seen the price drop of a console, or even a sale, without it being officially sanctioned by the console manufacturer? Nope. Can we verify the validity of this flyer? Nope. Could Circuit City be desperate enough to sell the PS3 console at a loss to themselves just to move product and software? Well, that's the real question, isn't it?

Update: GameDaily reports an anonymous source who is the "merchandising manager at one of the world's biggest retailers" confirmed the price drop is retail-wide and begins July 12. The first wave of flyers are July 15. There's also an ongoing thread regarding the price drop at Cheap Ass Gamer.

Update 2: We now have the full page Circuit City ad found after the break. The tipster goes on to say, "And just to make things clear. This is not just for Circuit City. This will be for all retailers in the US and will be $499 from now on. No store can sell a console for cheaper without the permission from the console's company so no Sony did NOT give Circuit City a special deal to sale the PS3 at this price." [Thanks Se7enwolf]

The nation's best cyber-athletes are already beginning to gather in New York City for the World Cyber Games US Open. Who knows what kind of trials they've endured as they've trained for months, quite possibly years, analyzing the subtleties of each individual frame of animation found in their favorite video game. These competitors, after tirelessly battling countless opponents, will ultimately prove themselves by facing their greatest challenge yet ... you.

For those confident in their gaming skills, it's not too late to join the World Cyber Games. The WCG is the leading video game tournament in the world, offering corporate sponsored cash prizes that are beginning to rival other more legitimate sporting events. Those that want to partake in the competition will want to find one of 28 Circuit City stores that are participating in the newly announced World Cyber Games Tour.

The Tour will feature two tricked out motor coaches, loaded with HDTVs and tournament games, including: Gears of War, Dead or Alive 4, Project Gothem Racing 3, Tony Hawk's Project 8, FIFA Soccer 07 and Need for Speed Carbon. Players will be competing for a chance to earn wild card slots into a regional WCG event, where they'll have a chance to be defeated by one of the nation's top players. For more details on the tour, visit Circuit City's website.

Circuit City in their most recent flyer guarantees Super Paper Mario to be in-store April 10 by 2 PM or the bamboozled customer receives a $20 gift card. Those addendums you see there represented by "3" and "**" are that the offer is only good this week and the $20 needs to be used on a future purchase, which means if the game isn't "in-store" tomorrow that's an insta-twenty bucks off -- that's a free greatest hits title on any system.

We really are having a hard time seeing the downside to this deal. If the product isn't there, that's an automatic $20 gift card. Or the product is there and we get a new game -- and not Gamestop's definition of "new." Then again, we could check Gamestop today and maybe they'll have a video of the Super Paper Mario ending and save us $50 right from the start. Definitely worth the trip to Circuit City if you were looking to pick up Super Paper Mario, the newest Gamecube title for the Wii.

[Via WiiFanboy]

I was rubbing the sleep from my eyes after waking up way too early for a Sunday morning when I got a call from my 13-year-old sister, Paige (pictured to the right). "How's it going?" I asked. "Not good," she said.

Paige wasn't that excited about the Wii when it first came out, but sometime in mid-December the hype (and the promise of a new Wario Ware game) hit her like a ton of bricks. Since then, she's been clamoring for the hard-to-find system in a big way, constantly working the phones to nearby Rockville, Md., retailers and scanning sites like iTrackr in the hopes of catching a shipment. After a few weeks of fruitless hunting, Paige was begging me to ask my "Nintendo girlfriend" (a.k.a. my PR contact) to send her a system. When I told her it doesn't quite work that way, she told me to use my "sexy looks" to sway her. Apparently the search for a Wii had made her delusional.

I knew I probably shouldn't be encouraging my sister's compulsion, but when I saw all the chatter on Joystiq about retailers holding Wii systems for sale, I had to tell her. After poring over the available data Saturday night, we developed a plan to wake up early and stake out the most likely candidates before they opened on Sunday morning. Paige and my mom would hit the Rockville stores, I would try the retailers in my local Laurel, about an hour away (yes, I got recruited into camping for my sister. Yes, I am a sucker.)

Reader Audioeric sent in a couple issues he had with the latest Circuit City catalog. For starters, the catalog says "Playstation 3: Ready to rumble. It's hot." The first joke here is obvious considering the PS3 is the only next-gen console without a rumble feature to speak of. Then there is the awkward choice of using the word "hot" to describe any Sony product currently. Does Circuit City mean the PS3 is like Sony exploding battery hot? Jury is still out if these word choices were awkward mistake or if a Microsoft/Nintendo fanboy designer put together the page.

The other weird thing is the turned-off Xbox 360 controllers playing, what is not a Xbox 360 Madden, on a projection television supposedly attached to the Xbox 360 by a USB cable ... say what? You can't plug an Xbox 360 to any display device through USB. That's just wrong.

[Thanks Audioeric]

According to a memo obtained by GameDaily BIZ from smaller video game chain Rhino Video Games, Sony has "decided to limit the supply of hardware (systems and accessories) to its top five volume retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, etc.)" on the November 17 launch day.

However, we know of at least seven major retailers receiving PlayStation 3 units on launch day. In addition to Target and Wal-Mart, we know GameStop / EB Games, Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears and Toys 'R' Us are having PS3s on launch day. We know supplies will be very limited and GameStop won't be fulfilling all of its PS3 pre-orders (already conservative figures).

That smaller retail chains will not have PS3s on launch day is not that surprising, but only the "top five retailers" is wrong and makes the memo a bit suspect. Rhino Video Games will not be getting PS3s on launch day -- a fact reaffirmed on its website -- the rest is not true. Rest assured, there will be PS3s for sale at all retailers by the end of 2007. We hope.

Washington's Fox 5 News has the video of approximately 150 people waiting in a line that "grows by the hour" outside the Rockville, MD Circuit City last night in advance of Friday's PS3 launch. The story also shows that the store has only 100 consoles in the storeroom, leaving us to worry about the countless people who will likely wait for two days only to go home empty handed.

The pole position in line goes to a father purchasing the system for a son to "let him know how much love I have for him." We should all have such fathers. Not all the line-goers are so selfless though -- one waiter said point blank that it was "more economical for us to stand in line and do nothing for three days, [then] turn around and sell it on eBay for two grand." The free market ... ya gotta love it.

Sister site Xbox 360 Fanboy got the goods on some upcoming Black Friday deals yesterday. For those of you who may not know, Black Friday (so very appropriately named) is the Friday immediately after Thanksgiving, when stores feature gargantuan sales in an effort to suck shoppers in and kick-start the Christmas shopping season.

Best Buy is having an $18.99 sale featuring:

• Amped 3
• Condemned
• NBA Live '06
• Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis
• The Outfit (apparently you can score this one for only $9.99 if you buy it in-store before noon)
  

Circuit City offers a different set at $16.99:

• Full Auto
• Gun
• Perfect Dark Zero
• Quake 4
• Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

Our advice is to call the stores to find out if these deals will be available online and stay inside. Black Friday is normally a hellish experience with a lot of pushing, shoving and greed. In fact, we're surprised Rockstar hasn't made a video game version yet.

Your mission: take out other shoppers before they can get your sale items.

Want to be able to stroll into a store on launch day, and come back out with a hot Wii in your hands? Check out the guide that Wiiloaded has up. Of course, if everyone reads this thing, then you'll be screwed. Cross your fingers and take some of their helpful advice like: find a 24 Wal-Mart to camp out in because it'll be warm, check out who is jumping on the midnight release bandwagon (Circuit City, Wal-Mart, probably more to come) and get there early, or visit a Sam's or Costco because they are frequently overlooked during console launches.

Also helpful is the Target Wii allocation list that was dropped online. It hasn't been verified, but if the info is true then it will help you choose which Target to, er ... target. Here's a helpful online doohickey that you can use to search and find out how many Wiis your Target will get. Apparently our local store is getting 220, when they got zero on Xbox 360 launch day. Plus the sheer size of the Target Wii areas and the amount of accessories they have been offering for more than a month before launch make us think they'll be getting quite a few.

With one million plus Wiis to be made available on launch day, and three million more available by Christmas, we don't think you'll have problems getting one. People are going to be divided between the Wii and the PS3, and that's going to hurt sales of both consoles while buyers try and decide what to get. Because Nintendo will have scads of Wiis in the stores, it'll make it that much easier to get one without resorting to eBay, Canada, or the black market. Only turn to those options if you're seeking a PlayStation3. Those are gonna be hard to come by.

[Thanks, Marko K. and Rob Templin]

Circuit City is laying some cards out on the table, while most stores are messing with minds and not giving numbers or launch details. 6 Circuit City stores will have a midnight launch on November 16 with 100 units up for grabs. The events officially start at 8PM, but if you want to be positive that you'll get one of the 100 units you should plan to arrive early -- by about a day, if not more, once this info gets out.

The six stores are:

• Union Square: New York, NY - Store 3679
• Torrance: Hawthourne, Los Angeles - Store 404
• Cherry Hill: Mount Laurel, NJ - Store 0734
• Schaumburn: Schaumburg, IL - Store 3111
• Rockville: Rockville, MD - Store 866
• Short Pump: Richmond, VA - Store 3549
  

At 10PM vouchers will be given to the first 100 people in line and at midnight you'll be the proud owner of a PS3. Circuit City also says, in what can only be considered a sign of an impending disaster, that five stores will be "giving away" five PS3s each to "win," and the Union Square store will be "giving away" 100. No details on what that specifically means, but there better be cops with an ambulance present and waiting.


[Thanks TopaZ -- Sorry, look on the bright side, you'll have company out there now]

Circuit City is selling Final Fantasy XII for $37.99 USD starting this Tuesday, a full $12 less than any of the major U.S. electronic retail stores. Yeah, we're surprised by it as well. Not only does today's Circuit City flyer in your local newspaper have the price listed at $37.99, but the online price is listed as $37.99. It's as real as it gets. Of course, this means nothing to those lucky people that caught CompUSA breaking street date.

We've even contacted a few Circuit City stores and, just like other retailers, they say their copies are currently sitting in the warehouse ready for distribution -- but they aren't breaking street date. So, Circuit City has the copies, they are $12 less than anybody else and are ready to pick up first thing when the store opens on Tuesday. Come on, not to be completely jaded, but what's the catch?

A call has been placed to Circuit City PR to find out if there is something we are missing and why they are selling the game for such an amazing price. The only thing that doesn't jive is that the flyer says Tuesday, but online says Thursday as release.

NCsoft and ArenaNet have confirmed a franchise record attendance for the world premiere event of Guild Wars Nightfall. This past weekend, nearly 500,000 MMO enthusiasts spent an average of 8.5 hours trying out the new expansion pack, which officially launches Oct. 27. How many of you participated in this event?

If you've been thinking about trying out Guild Wars, the Factions expansion pack is on sale for $30 at Circuit City until tomorrow (and you don't need the original game to play).

See also: 3 million hours spent on Guild Wars Factions preview weekend

Practicing a form of Social Darwinism, Circuit City has decided to steal money from those who are dumb enough to give it away. One quick-witted Kotakuite (that's what they call themselves ... ) spotted a poster in a Newport Beach, California Circuit City where they offer to install backwards compatibility into an Xbox 360 for the low, low price of $28.99.

Nevermind that backwards compatibility is available outside of the box, updatable through Xbox Live (or a disc that you can request from Microsoft). No, no, let Circuit City install it for you! It even brags that "every* game will be backwards compatible." Did you see the asterisk (*) mark? The fine print notes that one should "refer to the original Xbox games list to ensure compatibility on the Xbox 360." But if you know to do that, you also know that this deal is bullshit -- it's a Catch-22.

You are welcome to be mad at Circuit City, but wouldn't you do the same thing if you could get away with it?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]