DeaconKnowledge said:
I find it funny that you think it's stupid to assume this would happen as that's basically the reason the Arcade exists in the first place: a cheap alternative for casual players to get in on the ground floor with the 360.
Do you honestly think that a nations worth of casual fly by night gamers are looking at the 360 and saying "man, i'll wait for a Premium"?
The Arcades are dying because the market they're intended for doesn't want a 360.
Ah, your friends. Much better barometer of performance than NPD.
I'm sorry, but what i'm seeing here is that people are claiming shortages when a gaggle of Arcades are languishing on the shelves. The thought that a seemingly large amount of people are outright ignoring that SKU as well as the dog shit Halo version tells me that the 360 is selling to a specific set of gamers. We're 3 years into the life of the 360; why is adoption of the console still so conditional? Surely there is a subset of gamers who just want to get in on the console and its 20+ million selling library without spending a fortune. Microsoft obviously believes this, as that's the whole purpose of the Arcade, so why are we giving MS a mulligan for a tiered SKU that's not selling?
If the Core/Arcade was priced appropriately, we might see this as the case. As in, subtract the exact retail value of everything that comes in the box with the premium that doesn't come with the Arcade, and then price it there.
MS keeps giving the thing an excuse not to sell though.
I've been saying it since last year, that even if the Core is under $199, a $299 Premium would still outsell it because what you get in the box is more than worth it.
Even a hypothetical, dumb as rocks, casual idiot of a consumer can look at the shelf right now and think "hmmm...for $70 more I get a $99 HDD, component cables, a headset, and two games, whereas with this one I get...Pacman."
The Arcade is a MUCH better value than the Core, but it's still an infinitely worse value than the Premium or Elite. The Halo 3 SKU, aside from its hideous color, suffers from the same problem. There is absolutely no incentive to pay $50 for what is essentially a premium without 2 games packed in.
MS has continuously underestimated the intelligence of their (potential) fanbase since the launch of the 360. If the Arcade existed in a vacuum, it would probably be more popular. Given the choice between getting an arcade and going to another store to find an Elite, it's obvious what consumers have chosen.
For what it's worth, they don't get a 'mulligan' for shipping too much of an undesired SKU. It's a screw up, and they deserve the egg on their face. But we can't ignore the difference between the SKUs and say "a 360 is a 360, they are in stock", when this isn't true to the average consumer.