Best Buy + HD-DVD + Impatience = 50 bucks?
I still love you little drive
It looks like Best Buy is jumping on the bandwagon of stores who are offering their customers some type of “we’re sorry you’re a dumbass” consolation prize for the early adopters of HD-DVD. Today it was announced here that if you purchased a qualifying HD DVD player from Best Buy before February 23, 2008, you will be receiving a complimentary $50 Best Buy gift card. I know you’re probably asking yourself, “why would they do such a thing” and the answer is quite obvious and easy: Publicity is great and they aren’t really losing any money on this fiasco. Back in 2006, Best Buy reported a $43 million gain from used gift cards. That’s 43 million dollars of people who just didn’t use their gift cards: WTF?? You can be pretty certain that none of those people were gamers because we would use them the instance we received them, or at least put them towards a pre-order.
free money is good money
Although the format war is over, I’m still happy with my purchase simply for the fact that I can pick up HD movies for the cheap. Granted I’ll eventually run out of options with the HD-DVD format, but I have roughly 558 movies to buy on the cheap. For instance: I can either purchase American Gangster for $14.99 on regular DVD or spend 3 more bucks and have the HD version that’s plays on any drive. For someone who collects movies, it’s pretty much a win-win for me.
So what did you do during the “great” format war? Did you wait on the sideline until one had risen victorious? Or did you just become a tech whore and buy them both like I did? Also, for those who did buy the add-on or a HD DVD player, are you keeping it?
Jermaine :: Mar.19.2008 :: LotM News, Movies, Xbox 360, Misc :: 3 Comments »
Meagan and I sat on the sidelines. But more and more it’s looking like we’ll be making the jump to HD soon.
It really would be great if you could make digital backup copies of your current and future HD-DVD library. You could down-convert to standard definition, or make it playable on an iPod or iPhone, all while keep the native-resolution version in a safe, disc-format-free place.
You think we’ll see any utilities out soon that will allow for something like that?
Sidelines of course. I’m going to get a nice HD TV before I buy a blueray player. And with a roommate like you, I don’t need to buy movies!
So you got a $50 gift card for the 360 HD-DVD add on? I would think Best Buy would back out with a technicality on that one.
I purchased a HD DVD Player from Amazon for my girlfriend for xmas in Nov, 2007. Luckily, the news about the demise of HD came before the Jan. 31 return date. I returned the player and the HD DVD’s for full credit. I will probably purchase the xbox 360 hd dvd when/if woot.com picks it up for less than $50 and buy Planet Earth. I’m not a big movie fan, so I am not concerned about buying movies. If/when I do buy a Blu-ray player, I will just buy a PS3, though I am very satisfied with my Wii, DSlite, & XBox 360!