Core may not be “Best Buy” Anymore!

Posted under Console Crimes, Microsoft, Rumor Control, Tech News, Xbox 360, Xbox Live by Mr B4

You heard it here first everyone (well almost first), according to an article posted on gamingrevolution.com, joystiq.com, and gamepro.com, many Best Buy’s are out of stock on the 360 core. They also do not plan on restocking their shelves with them anytime soon. So I thought I would go to a couple of local stores by me to see if this was true or not. Not only is there not anymore systems on their shelves, an employee there told me “We do not plan on receiving anymore systems, since they were not selling all that well“.

Where’s the proof you ask? Well it’s right here in front of you.

According to the area’s circled in the image above, the 360 core has been deleted from Best Buy’s inventory on July 29th. What this means is that this product will be removed from their shelves, and the online stores. Thus, leaving us to 2 types of systems for the time being.

The first thought here might be “who cares?”, since number one, it offers none of the features that the elite and pro systems do. Two, it does not offer any online play, since you only receive Xbox Live Silver, and not their gold service. And finally, number three, it does not have the 120, or at the very least, a 20 gb hard drive. Thus permitting you from saving your games, having a gamerscore card, or playing any Xbox live arcade titles and backwards compatible games.

So at a first glance, this might be a good thing, just to have two types of consoles to pick from, and for the average gamer like you and me, it is. For the people who can’t afford these prices for these systems, however, it’s not, and here’s two ways to look at it.

1. Everything is all set: The first way to look at this is “Well, everything is available on the elite or pro console, so you’re getting more bang for your buck”. You have all of the features you could want for only 50 dollars more, instead of having to pay hundreds more just to catch up.

2. Everyone is entitled to: The second way of looking at this goes by the idea of “Shouldn’t all of the same features be included on all systems, so I don’t have to pay more to get more.” Basically meaning, if you offer the same features to everyone, you will have an even larger gaming community. And when that happens you have more people buying your games, which in turn leads to a bigger profit for your company.

So does this mean that the core system will now be discontinued in every store around the world, since it’s now being taking off the shelves of one the largest electronics stores in the world?. According to Gamepro.com, a Microsoft representative responded to this question by saying “no”. Xbox 360 core remains an important member of the Xbox 360 family”.

Gamepro also did an interview earlier this month with Shane Kim (corporate vice president at Microsoft), and asked him about the possible discontinuing of the 360 core.
He had this to say:

“It’s definitely here to stay“, Kim said. “We’ve got a great line up from core to elite, and there’s that set of customers that want the lower price point who want vast majority of the functionality of the Xbox 360, and you get that with the core“. He also claimed that his company is pushing back on any publisher who encourages hard drive enabled games that can not be made playable for the core version.

My question to all gamers is, how do you feel about this? Do you think this could affect us, or anybody, as a gamer? Please share your thoughts, they do count. This is XBL Radio. Your game, Your voice, Your radio, and Your Blogcast.

Until next time, take care folks, this is Mr B4 signing off.

Links to articles and the interview
http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/view.php?id=3043
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/30/best-buy-done-with-xbox-360-core-model/
http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=126048