litepink's Blog - Apr to Jun 12 (179 followers)

Blog

• Date range... Apr - Jun 13 Jan - Mar 13 Oct - Dec 12 Jul - Sep 12 Apr - Jun 12 Jan - Mar 12 Oct - Dec 11
• Blog RSS feed
• View full blog

What was shaping up to be a really BUSY Friday, fell pretty flat. The Canada deals are sparse this week and Target doesn’t have any Xbox 360 deals next week. There is an offer for Brave below though.

• Canada Deals

Several retailers have the White 4GB Kinect Console bundle for $249.XX: Futureshop, Best Buy, Walmart and RCSS (+$50 gift card here). Other then that, it’s sort of a slow week for Canada and Xbox 360

EB Games
Dark Souls - $29.99

Best Buy
Buy one get one 50% off all $19.99 titles

Walmart
Just Dance 3, Black Eyed Peas Experience - $19.83 ea.

Toys R US
Buy one get one 50% off all $19.99 titles

• Brave Offer At Target

As pointed out in last week’s preview, Target is offering a $10 gift card with purchase of Disney’s Brave: The Videogame. There’s also $8 in movie cash included as well.



Target has graciously provided a $10 off coupon, available from here. Therefore you can get Brave for $39.99+$10 Gift Card+$8 movie cash.

If you’re interested, the gift card deal is good today and tomorrow.

No Target ad offers next week, but check out the Best Buy preview in my previous blog

Hope everyone has a good weekend. Unless something great comes up I’m out for the weekend. Besides my growing XBLA backlog that I should tackle, I have plans all day tomorrow. Hopefully then I can do some of that XBLA gaming tonight and Sunday (starting Minecraft, and what the hell is Magic!? I’ll find out)


-litepink

• NewEgg Summer Savings

I love this game so much that it gives me the chills thinking about it:

The Gunstringer (+ Fruit Ninja Kinect) – $14.99

I bought the game about a week or two after it was released and couldn’t have been more pleased. If you have Kinect and don’t have The Gunstringer yet, you’re doing it wrong –YOU HAVE TO GET THIS GAME!! Fruit Ninja is a great little bonus too. This user review by Chad and Jessie is on par on how I feel about this game; read it and give it a thumbs up if you agree.

There’s a few other specials at NewEgg as well:

Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition – $15.99
3-months Xbox LIVE Gold – $12.99
Skyrim Collector’s Edition – $59.99

Free shipping. Prices valid through 6/25

• Best Buy Pre-Owned Deals

Call of Duty 4 - $4.99
Gears of War 2 - $2.99
Battlefield Bad Co. 2 - $4.99
Borderlands - $9.99
Medal of Honor - $9.99
Homefront - $12.99

Buy 2 Get 1 Free on ALL pre-owned games as well. Prices and offers valid through Saturday

Say what you will about Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops II, Activision, or the direction of the series as a whole but you can’t take away how iconic and influential Call of Duty 4 was. Honestly, without it, I wouldn’t be writing this very blog, I likely would be playing Wii and saving up for a Wii U. This game got me to re-purchase an Xbox 360 and started my achievement interest…I was SO into Nintendo prior to this game. I’ve recently got back into playing the MP side of it, despite already logging in 40 days of game time into it thus far. That’s approaching 1000 hours! The online is playable, although there are some hackers on occasion. A couple times it crippled the game for me, but overall now I’ve learned to deal with it or switch games modes. [Never participate in hacked lobbies, such as sliding, super speed, super jumping – you will get banned. If an individual is cheating but you and the rest of the lobby are not affected, it is my understanding that you won’t get banned though]

Being a fan of Kinect and Call of Duty can be two unpopular viewpoints at times. I tend not to judge what people play, so long as they are enjoying it. I expect the same in return. Those aren’t my only two interests though, my scope is much broader than that.

• Best Buy Ad 6/24-6/30

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - $19.99
Modern Warfare 2 - $19.99 (comes with first map pack?)
Kinect Disneyland - $29.99
NBA 2K12 - $29.99 (GOTY edition maybe?)

Special offer: purchase The Amazing Spiderman, get either Spiderman 1, 2, or 3 blu-ray for free + $10 movie cash. (Should be eligible for $10 reward on top of that if you order via BestBuy.com with Store Pickup)

Kmart will have one Xbox 360 offer next week: Purchase the first run ‘Premium Edition’ of Spec Ops: The Line ($59.99 MSRP) receive a $20 credit with Shop Your Way Rewards.

Friday is the busiest [Deal Blog] day usually, so there’ll be plenty tomorrow for sure.


-litepink

Big big blog today. Couldn't fit it in the title, but there's a possibilty of some great Futureshop clearances too.

• Madden and NCAA 13 Offers at Best Buy

We'll be stacking two different deals for this offer:

Deal #1 - $20 in Reward Zone Certificates for Gamers Club Unlocked on select pre-orders. This was detailed previously but we'll go over it again.

Pre-order and purchase any of these titles:
NCAA Football 13
Madden NFL 13
Far Cry 3
Borderlands 2
FIFA Soccer 13
Resident Evil 6
NBA 2K13
Dishonored
Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Assassin's Creed III
Halo 4

Then receive $20 back in Reward Zone certificates for each games pre-ordered+purchased. This deal is great by itself!

Deal #2 - Spend $50 on music, movies, or videogame software via BestBuy.com, receive a $10 reward when you use store pickup.

Therefore, if you pre-order NCAA or Madden, you'll receive $30 in rewards total. Otherwise this deal is decent by itself as well.

Stipulations
-For Deal 1, you have to be a Gamers Club Unlocked Member at Best Buy. It's $15/year, but as pointed out in yesterday's and many other blogs, is well worth it.
-Deal 2 excludes pre-owned games or PC titles, and the $50 must be all in one transaction, not cumulative. Obviously, if you're doing this for NCAA or Madden, you'll reach the $50 threshold. Has to be Store Pickup too remember.

If you have any questions or this is confusing to you, leave a comment and I'll answer. Both of these deals can be done separate too, but just wanted to put out the unique combination.

• Max Payne 3 SE $69.99

Surprise, surprise, Best Buy again!.

Max Payne 3 Special Edition - $69.99

If you choose store pickup, you get the aforementioned $10 reward too!

• XBLA Retail Discs: Capcom Digital Collection ($16) and more

Amazon – $15.98
A third party seller on Amazon is offering this retail disc for only $15.98, an incredible value since the disc contains these 8 XBLA games:
1942: Joint Strike
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2
Final Fight Double Impact (includes Final Fight and Magic Sword)
Flock!
Rocketmen: Axis of Evil including Rocketmen: It Came From Uranus expansion
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3.

This is fulfilled by Amazon, and if you spend over $25 you get free super saver shipping.

Need some advice on getting over that threshold? Keeping with the XBLA theme, how about:


Amazon – $16.68
Plants vs. Zombies comes with Zuma and Peggle as well!

For about $33 you can get 11 XBLA titles in disc form, which you can sell/trade/borrow!

Then over at Gamestop you can Bejeweled 3+Bejeweled Blitz LIVE for $9.99

• Futureshop Clearance Items

I’m not sure if any of these items are available in your store, but with these links you can check the availability. The DJ Hero Party Bundle IS in stock online currently. Grrrr, just sold out of DJ Hero 2 online.

DJ Hero 2 Party Bundle – $19.99

Kinect Sensor Gunstringer Bundle – $49.99

250 GB Xbox 360 Halo Reach Bundle – $179.99

That's all for today, but already cooking up more for Thursday and Friday

-litepink

Yesterday we had a special [Deal Blog] Alert, as the XBLA compilation disc Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat was on sale for $19.99, with an @Gamer coupon bringing it down to $0.00, or -$0.01 to get technical. Some shoppers were getting denied this deal, and the excuses by Best Buy staff was poor in some cases (for the record, I love Best Buy, they’ve been very good to deal seekers this past year). Sale prices and @Gamer coupons are stackable, it says in bold blue font on the back of the coupon. The problem is though, that the negative dollar amount can’t be recognized by the registers at BBY. This isn’t an employee’s fault, but fixable by a manager’s override. Still though, several gamers across the country were getting flat out denied.

I set out to Best Buy to pick up my copy of Kinect Sports 1 for Store Pickup, and to purchase Deadliest Warrior for $0 and Dragon Age II for $5 (after coupon of course). I also brought some verbal ammo in case I needed it…phrases such as “these are PREMIUM COUPONS” (@Gamer is $15/year), or “I am an extremely loyal Best Buy customer, and we don’t want to change that”.

First I picked up my Store Pickup for Kinect Sports. Why does this take so long? I noted this in a recent survey Best Buy sent out for my Store Pickup experience. Good customer service, amazing prices, accurate items…but slowwww. Oh well…I’m usually using Store Pickup to get some awesome $5 game so I won’t get too worked up.

When that’s done, I hand them my two games and coupons. My total? “$26.72” they say. I politely say “No, it should be about $21 less, I don’t think that coupon worked.” The worker quickly glances at her screen “yeaahhh, you’re right”. Another worker --higher up but not a manager I don’t think--, was sort of lingering around the area, and noticed the first employee’s troubles. “Try this” he said as he did a bunch of key smashing. Worker 1 takes over again while the second one looks at the back of the coupon, sorting of thinking out loud if it works on sale prices, and if free items are void or anything thing. He sort of mumbles that is should work…meanwhile the price on my screen jumps between $26 and $42 a few times. I stand there without saying anything.

Several minutes of this go on. Worker 2 does a little more button mashing, and voila, my total is $5.35 for both Dragon Age II and Deadliest Warrior. I pay with my gift card and I’m on my way! No need to hassle or haggle, no need for arguing or empty threats of not shopping there again. Between the store pickup and the purchase though it took a good 10-15 minutes to check out.

The sale price has since went up to $24.99 this morning, so now the game will cost you $4.99 instead. I don’t think is too rotten at all because now a) Best Buy isn’t giving away a game, and b) the game will ring up with ease since it won’t be a negative number. $5 is still an amazing price.

For those who were denied yesterday though, I think that’s just plain wrong. Best Buy HAS to be conscious of what @Gamer coupons are out there when they set sale prices…and if there WAS a mistake, I don’t think it would be that hard to pull the games from the shelf until it is fixed. Plus, as I mentioned they are ‘premium coupons’. I’ve saved so much with @Gamer coupons, but I technically pay to get these coupons. If the shelf tag is out there, the games are out there, and you have a coupon from a magazine you purchased, you shouldn’t have been denied the sale. I’m glad it worked for me but I have sympathy for those it didn’t work for. The employees and management at those stores deserve a . Still though, as a whole Best Buy gets these:

I’ve got more great Best Buy deals to report sometime this week, so be on the look out for those blogs! All the other usual stuff as well.


-litepink

I don't like writing two blogs in one day, but I felt compelled to with finally catching wind of this offer:

Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat - Sale price of $19.99 at Best Buy - $20 off with @Gamer coupon = FREE. Coupon valid in-store only

"Ancient Combat" is the retail disc for both Dealiest Warrior games on XBLA and includes all the DLC. @Gamer is of course the Best Buy gaming magazine with great coupons every month.

I'm off to try it myself; some people are getting DENIED, which is impossible because the coupon clearly states that coupons stack on sale prices.

Wish me luck!

-lp