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EBGames Canada - Can't get the PSP Value pack anymore...

D

DrEvil

not a medical professional
I work at an EBGames here In ontario, and this is Canada wide -- you CANNOT buy the Value Pack anymore (Eg. preorder).

We have 6 preorders for the val pack in canada, which runs for 299.99 - you know what it includes.

Anyways, reason being, is sony isnt shipping the value pack to canada - we actually have to BUY our stock from the US EB games to fulfil our preorders (which, aren't very many anyways - lolz).

Anyways, the ONLY bundle available to Canada is the gretsky hockey one - for $349.99

Best Buy and Futureshop are selling the PSP and three-games as a bundle for something upwards of 500$ .- - Sony is shooting themselves in the foot.
 
Correct. But if you want a PSP anywhere else, all major chains are price gouging / forcing a bundle on you.

Also, if you go to a EB in canada, and some how manage to get a value pack preorder, you will be getting that employee fired - all employees as of last thursday that sell a value pack preorder, will be immediately written up and could face termination.
 
I pre-ordered a PSP like a year ago.

Am I secured for the value pack? or will I also be forced to buy gretzky too?
 
I would get the Gretzky bundle if it had "Strike Mode". Bettman vs NHLPA. You get to schedule secret meetings and haggle over the salary cap numbers while NPC's give interviews with exactly the same boring information. Then you see your core audience going to watch NASCAR instead.
 
acidviper said:
I would get the Gretzky bundle if it had "Strike Mode". Bettman vs NHLPA. You get to schedule secret meetings and haggle over the salary cap numbers while NPC's give interviews with exactly the same boring information. Then you see your core audience going to watch NASCAR instead.
Click to expand...

I can already tell that you most likely made your way here from Gamefaqs
 
Tabris said:
I pre-ordered a PSP like a year ago.

Am I secured for the value pack? or will I also be forced to buy gretzky too?
Click to expand...


You should be. Go in and be sure, since your preorder was made before the official prices (likely when it still said 499.99 in the system), you SHOULD rightly be secured for value pack - if they say no, demand that you get it because you dont want no gretsky piece of shit. They will most likely HAVE to comply with your request, since your preorder was placed before this new 'EB law'
 
I heard about this in the past week, I preoredered about a month ago, and they said nothing about having any bundle to me, so I gotta wonder if I was still sold this gretzky bundle. Idono,maybe if I'm lucky the manager for the sherwood park EB's will be working at one of them and I can convince him I'll buy 2 other games if I dont have to get gretzky. Seriously what's to stop me from taking the forced bundle home and then coming right back wiht an unopened copy of gretzky for PSP ? They say they take unopened games back for 14 days so I'd just trade it for a copy of something I would actually play. Like for example any of the 3-4 games I was considering picking up - Ridge racer, Lumines, Twisted metal, Wipeout, darkstalkers, tony hawk underground 2. According to an employee who is a freind of mine, nothing would stop any customer from doing such a thing, hell I could even take that unopened game back to a walmart and say I lost the receipt... although I bet a few people have allready thought of that. Force a bundle if you must but atleast let me pick the games I actually want to buy.
 
DrEvil said:
Also, if you go to a EB in canada, and some how manage to get a value pack preorder, you will be getting that employee fired - all employees as of last thursday that sell a value pack preorder, will be immediately written up and could face termination.
Click to expand...

Thats the best news ever!! Everyone try to get a value pack, lets get as many employees terminated as possibe! A great way of getting back at those bastards.
 
Firest0rm said:
Thats the best news ever!! Everyone try to get a value pack, lets get as many employees terminated as possibe! A great way of getting back at those bastards.
Click to expand...
Then everybody go to Firest0rm's work and tell his boss that he didn't supersize your fries and get his ass fired!

way cool!
 
Yeah, you have to preorder a Gretzky bundle in EB which sucks. However, my local store has more than 100 preorders right now, which I have no idea if it's good or bad (and this is in town that has two EBs and around 200K people). They still do accept Gretzky bundle preorders though.
 
Guy LeDouche said:
Then everybody go to Firest0rm's work and tell his boss that he didn't supersize your fries and get his ass fired!

way cool!
Click to expand...

Ha!! :D I don't work right now. Although I have applied for a job at a bank for the summer (and no its not a teller position).
 
I'm glad I pre-ordered 6 PSP's around the GTA :D I'm secured to get a least one and the rest... will go up on ebay! :D

Futureshop will have units in stock and on store shelves March 25th so you'll be able to get one if you walk in early (50 or so units). That's at Trinity Mall in Brampton, ON
 
The market is going to be flooded with Gretzky PSP. Ebgames dude told me I can trade it in but I only get the used value. Look at this eBay Item number: 8176832898. Dude is trying to sell his Gretzky before he can throw it out. For $70 no less. LOL any takers?
 
Okay, here is an update- The gretzky bundle being sold isn't what I originally thought- which was a PSP value pack and a copy of gretzky, that is what the bundle contains but the copy of gretzky is actually contained within the bundle with a sticker on the box and everything. I think it's kind of dumb of sony to bother making a game bundle deal at all like this, maybe with the second shipment but really most people don't want to buy this game and will end up selling it.

Either way, I'm glad becuase I preordered a system while EB was still offering regular value packs and it seems EB canada isn't ripping us off as much as I first thought with software. You'll notice that the launch lineup is evenly split between 40 and 50 US dollar games. 40 american right now is about 50 canadian and 50 american is about 60 canadian, yet for a while EB had games listed at 60-70 dollars, in other words a 10 dollar mark up. Today I found out that the prices have been reconfirmed at more reasonable levels- games go from 50-65 canadian apparently with some retailing for price points between those numbers , such as 54.99 for ridge racer . This is good news becuase it means I can pick up 3 games at EB instead of driving to futureshop.
 
I was going to pre-order at EB last week (is it just me or are all the EB games inundated with too much yellow signage?) but they told me the same thing... it started in March basically.

Well screw that, you can preorder on amazon.ca now, videogamesplus.ca with a game of your choice, or go to Wal-mart on launch day.

Another choice is the Sony Store (they also have a your-choice-of-game bundle if you decide to go that route).
 
No, if you have preordered the value pack, you will STILL Get the value pack.

Basically what happened, is EB games Canada assumed we'd be getting the same as the US, so we started the pre-orders the same way - then Sony informed us that Canada will NOT be getting the value pack - this is not just EB, this is futureshop, everyone.

So any value pack preorders* WILL be honoured, but will be filled with hardware / value packs bought by EB Games Canada from EB Games USA's stock.


* This means orders PAID IN FULL ONLY, not that shitty ass $20 down stuff. If you've only put 20 bucks down, or a few bucks down (eg 50 or 100), you will be required/forced to get the gretsky bundle.

ALSO, trading in games from a bundle that are still sealed will be taken as USED games. We had TONS of mech assault 2 come returned immediately after the sale of the bundle last month... They will still be considered used as the receipt will only have something to the effect of "PSP -GRETS BUNDL PK" on the reciept, not the individual games.

Keep in mind, you'll still get approx a $30 in store credit as teh game is brand new. Although, since it will be in a 'high' return rate, it may be lowered immediately.



The value pack comes with, for those who don't remember:

PSP
Screen Cleaner
16mb Mem Stick
Headset
and the first million get spiderman the movie on UMD


Gretsky pack is

PSP
Screen Cleaner
32MB Stick
Headset
Gretsky
Spiderman Movie

and something else I can't remember.



As for which EB line it was, I believe it was actually included in a memo, your management staff should let you know or else you could be fucked over -- Be sure to chek around March 7th though, that is when I remember reading it.
 
Since I only put down 10 $ for my PSP, i'll be forced to buy Gretzky's game?

and I still get the spiderman movie?

I don't mind Gretzky(i was planing to buy it anyway).


Why the fuck didn't SCEC didn't inform the public?

this is just fuckin dumb.
 
Hellraizah said:
Seriously, I don't know about all this. By the way, I AM a manager at EB Games in Quebec, and I don't remember seeing anything about this ever. That, and the fact that my Sony rep brought me all kinds of sheets describing what we get in the value pack (and he is working for Sony Canada.... so.....)......

I'll try to check out in my E Bee Lines tomorrow......
Click to expand...

Yeah, this guy is probably full of shit... like Canada is not getting the Value Pack... what? What a bunch of horse crap!
 
Hey, it's what I've been told by my store manager -- It could be Ontario, but I was informed 'all of Canada'..

Our district manager has also reaffirmed this to me, so who knows what's accurate or not.

I doubt they'd specifically tell us not to sell (the most affordable) PSP hardware when right now it's all we're promoting...
 
This is why I never buy systems at launch. Why should I be forced to buy a game that I don't want just to secure a system?

As of today, Wal-Mart hasn't heard of this and said they'll be selling the unit with no problems and no bundles. I'll be seeing the Sony Rep on Monday, so I'll be sure to find out what's going on.

Also, one other note. March 25th is the Good Friday holiday. The PSP will be in stores on the 24th.
 
I still hold on tight on my 276$ order from dvdlate.com, and hope to god they will be forced to give me the Gretzky pack because they cannot give me anything else. :lol

Their distributor is Hip Interactive (Tevica), dvdlate.com office is just in front, on the other side of the 20 superhighway, in Boucherville, Canada. This is how they manage to get so many deals available while not having pretty much any stocks at all. Maybe one day they will get caught for illegal practices, I dunno. :lol


However, if I were to buy the PSP again (as a canadian), I think I would buy off Amazon.ca with ease, because most of their stuff is imported from the US anyway.
 
HOnestly to all those that are confused and such here are the cold hard dead and smelly facts-

Did you Preorder before march ?

If so, go to the EB you preordered at and double check with them , also look at your receipt, does it say PSP value pack or gretzky bundle deal ? If its the former and you preordered it before march you are okay.

Paid in full?

This is a 100% gauruntee I would think , wether payiing only 20 bucks screws you out of a regular value pack , based on my store is determined by when you preordered.

So you preordered in march , were offered a gretzky bundle and did it anyway?

Then you are stuck with it I'm afraid.

But I hate hockey games and want to get rid of it!

Well better post it on Ebay now, becuase EB's current trade in value for the game is 0 dollars. It's completly worthless .. Why ? while I"m pretty sure its nationwide, at the local stores its becuase its a forced bundle, everyone will have the game so who would buy it used ? That's right, no one, you'd have got the bundle and kept it or tried to get rid of it, and thus with such a small user base no one is going to buy a used copy.

So To sum it up -
PSP Value pack- you preordered it with atleast 20 bucks down before march 1st, you paid in full before march first, but the full guaruntee - go to the store you preordered it from and check with the manager- your receipt should say you have the value pack preordered.as well.

Gretzky bundle- you intentionally bought it , you preordered after march 1st, your receipt says gretzky bundle on it, Perhaps you put less then 20 down on the preorder.

A word of caution as well- I would think what with companies importing the bare bones value pack from the US that as I was told, they are only getting enough systems to fill the preorders made prior to the bundle announcment, thus if you were preorder 42 and they only got shipped 40 systems and you showed up at 9 pm but system 40 sold at 8:56pm then you will probaly have to buy the few systems they may get for the shelf or purchase a gretzky bundle preorder pack.


so in conclusion- Was it a stupid idea for sony to only offer this ? Yes and no. To the customer it seems really dumb, but to sony they probally figured no one is going to buy a hockey game in the US so we'll force canadians who might pick it up to buy it becuase canucks like hockey.... I think it would have made more sence to just have a first party title selection list , buy the system and get 10 % off one 1st party title of your own choice...
 
Hmmm Sony owns 989.

Gee thanks Sony for assuming I love hockey. I will not be playing your game I will just sit here and drink beer in my igloo. I would love it if they tried this shit in Alabama or something.

989 sponosrs Gretzky (no "s", WTF man Gressky don't even sound right)

I love the guy as a player but he is a total sellout now. I used to think he would keep it going as a classy individual not caring about sponsorship deals, but apparently he didn't make enough money and he likes his face on shoddy products.
 
This is a really annoying, stupid move by retailers. I forget, did they bundle console systems and the DS like this at launch?
 
acid, i know it's Gretzky, but I despise him as a 'Canadian Icon' so I spell it wrong on purpose.

and no, this didn't happen at the DS launch - surprisingly enough, we had close to 50 preorders for the DS launch, with no displays set up, and no sections set aside for the system pre-or at launch... It sold itself.

We have two huge front end setups, as well as both our windows filled with PSP boxes and promo stuff, and we still only have 8 preorders total (6 value, 2 gretzky) -- tells ya something right there.


As for what was said about the 20$ down, I guarantee you it will NOT secure you a value pack - they will just as easily say "Oh the price went up, and the deal changed" since you've only got 20$ down towards the product, they can change the sku on you without you even knowing it - because you haven't fully purchased it yet.

EDIT: Also, a lot of older preorders with just 20$ down were made before the prices were set, and the packs were announced, so your slip could easily say "SYS*PSP" and if that's the case, they/we can do whatever the hell they want to you.. heh


Take, for example... Last year when GT4 preorders started, the promotions were trade ANY 3 games in and get the game free - so a former coworker got three 99 cent games and traded them in, it worked. Shortly after this deal stopped, but his preorder was a year old, the transaction was completed - he traded all three games in; when GT4 got released, he came and got the picked up his game and off he went.


Any 'honouring' preorder bundles or game only apply to fully paid off purchases. Yes, 20$ might guarantee you a system, but that only means there will be a system there - not a value pack version of it.
 
Good points,

but they are only pre-orders. You don't have to buy it if you don't want to or if you think it sucks. If you think it sucks just cancel your pre-order.

And using your store doesn't really represent Canada. I'm sure there are some stores in West VA or upscale Toronoto that have massive pre-orders where money is not an issue.

Me I think its just a way to sell Gresky crap no one will touch otherwise.
 
DrEvil said:
The value pack comes with, for those who don't remember:

PSP
Screen Cleaner
16mb Mem Stick
Headset
and the first million get spiderman the movie on UMD
Click to expand...


Umm 16mb? you mean 32mb memory stick right? because if it's 16 I'm cancelling my order right now from EB and go pick one up at walmart
 
You should ask for them to price match Walmart. I always love it screwing them out of 1.13 or whatever Walmart chooses to price at. Prolly 348.84. It may not seem like much but thats like an extra Big Mac on a Tuesday.
 
I had a pissed off speech all typed out, good thing I checked out my receipts first. I put down money twice, once in Jan, once in Feb. The Feb one shows the Value Pack even though it's not fully paid off ($300 versus $341.98 after tax).

PSPReceipt.jpg
 
yeah, see those receipts folks. The one on the right is what you should have. Unless you don't pick up your preorder on day 1 , or you bought more then 1 system I can't see EB forcing a gretzky bundle down your throat. EB will get value packs = to the number of preorders they had prior to the announcment of the gretzky bundle pack. Any preorders/systems beyond that will be gretzky bundles.
 
UPDATE

This will piss a lot of people off, but we got word today from our distributors that we will NOT have enough PSP Value packs to fill the pre-orders (of value packs) at our store.

Basically, we had six value pack preorders (fully paid) before they made the gretzky bundle mandatory. we got word today that our store will only recieve THREE value packs - and they go to those who pre-ordered first, chronilogically.

This goes down to the goddamn second too.

Our system had one person pre order feb 2nd, then three on the 10th, the time between the second and third preorder was all of 35 seconds. Guess who gets the value pack and guess who gets the gretzky pack?

edit: yes, they have to pay the difference too.


So everything that was mentioned above about having a preorder slip for value pack is wrong. Unless you were the first few people to preorder at that store, you will be getting a phone call asking if you want to switch over to the gretzky bundle. There is NOTHING you can do short of cancelling your preorder.

Also, Gretzky and Spiderman movie have a 0$ trade value, as stated before.


Sorry to break this shitty news, but we had to deal with three pissed off customers tonight.
 
I'd just buy one from Superstore if that's the case.

You'll probably be able to get the Value Pack alone on day one without even pre-ordering.

My brother got two PS2's on launch day by just walking into the store on launch day (sold the other on eBay).

Then again, this doesn't bother me that much because I was planning on getting Gretzky NHL anyway.

I've never pre-ordered anything in Canada aside from Zelda: OoT because of the gold cartridge thing because you can generally almost always walk into Superstore on launch day and get just about anything, no matter how popular it is.
 
I came back from my local EB not too long ago, I talked it over with the manager there, I pre-ordered 2 PSP value packs. I didn't have to get a Gretzky bundle but I had to pay off the units in full which I did. Does this mean the manager will get in shit?? He's a cool guy don't want to see him get fired, he gets me deals on stuff.
 
There's lots of major retailers in Canada that don't force bundles.

Superstore, Wal-Mart, Zellers, etc.

I'm not sure about Toys R' Us though.
 
I think its just for launch. Again, how else are they gonna sell a hockey game without bundling it for canadians ? They won't.
 
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