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Microsoft to Woolworths: Return the 360s we sold you; we'll keep your money

by Randy Nelson { Jan 7th 2009 at 12:55AM }

UK retailer Woolworths is set to close the remainder of its stores today after being put into administration (what we in the States know as liquidation) back in November. Microsoft is one of many companies seeking to recover their products from the chain before they get sold off to repay debts, but, according to The Times, it's going a step further. Under British law, MS can sue to get its consoles back even though Woolworths has already paid for them in full.

Sound fishy? It does ... until you consider that the chain owes MS quite a lot of money despite having paid for the systems. MS is hoping to get the consoles back -- and resell them to cover part of what it was owed -- before the administrator of Woolworths' liquidation, Deloitte, can sell them on the cheap. In the meantime, Ubisoft is still out a decent amount of scratch thanks to the retailer's collsapse.

[Via 1UP]

Ubi could lose $2m from Woolworths collapse

by Jason Dobson { Dec 11th 2008 at 8:00PM }

Ubisoft may be gnashing its teeth at the one that got away, but the French publisher will likely be thankful for any extra padding in its account following the much publicized Woolworths collapse. GI.biz reports that the UK retail chain's recent demise, along with its distribution business EUK, could end up costing Ubi €1.5 million, or something in the neighborhood of $2 million.

Woolworths' going under is likely to be the subject of water cooler talk at other publishers as well, with UK tabloid The Sun suggesting earlier this week that both Microsoft and Nintendo could end up losing the millions of pounds currently owed to them by EUK. Truly the game industry is not insulated from the effects of the world's ongoing financial hardship. It's just unfortunate that in this global crisis, there is no Elika around to pull publishers back up to safety.

Europe receiving Xbox 360 price cut on Sept. 19

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 16th 2008 at 10:30AM }

Microsoft announced today that Europe would be joining North America in receiving an Xbox 360 price cut. The UK will receive a £30 reduction across all three models, while those on the mainland will receive varied reductions for their Euros.

Xbox 360 Arcade - £129 / €179
60GB Pro - £169 / €239
120GB Elite - £229 / €299

The previous prices were £159 / €199 for the Arcade, £199 / €269 for Pro and £259 / €369 for the Elite. We'll have to wait and see if the price drop doubles sales in Europe like it allegedly did in North America.

Rumor: Woolworths Xmas catalog shows UK Xbox 360 price drop

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 15th 2008 at 12:30PM }

UK retailer Woolworths (not to be confused with the defunct US five and dime store) allegedly published a price cut for the Xbox 360 in the company's Christmas catalog, which officially releases in a couple weeks. Scans of the holiday booklet apparently show that each of Microsoft's consoles will receive a £30 cut, reducing the Arcade to £130, Pro to £170 and Elite to £230.

Woolworths would not confirm the information to GI.biz, stating that "The Christmas 2008 Woolworths Big Red Book" will release the first week of October and, "until that date, remains a confidential document."

PlayStation 3 pre-orders are breaking records in Europe

by Nick Doerr { Feb 14th 2007 at 1:00PM }

Opening with a quote sounds appropriate: "It's the hottest gaming system since the PS2 launched in 2000 - demand will outstrip supply." That's coming from Woolworths head of games, Gerry Berkley. Woolworths is a UK store and that quote should tell you that the PS3 is going to hit Europe and hit it hard. How hard? Well, the estimate is that a PlayStation 3 pre-order is filed every twenty seconds for the past week. If you do the math, Woolworth is facing 3 per minute x 60 minutes in an hour x 24 hours in a day x 7 days per week in pre-orders... sorry for the messy numbers, but it comes out to 30,240 pre-orders!

Don't get us wrong -- we know it's a random guesstimation on Woolworths part and couldn't possibly be completely accurate. But if it were, that's the best case (or worst case, depending) scenario Sony and all the European gamers could hope for. A single chain of stores taking in 30,000 pre-orders is nothing to scoff at. Well, enjoy breaking records while you can, PlayStation 3, because you can only break pre-order records before the system is released.