I said that if a product was likely to sell out it probably wouldn't get discounted, not that if a product has sufficient units it's sure to get discounts.

Plus, I think retail stores like to cut the price of cheaper models of various products, so that the final cut-rate price is very low.  That kind of thing is good for headlines.  Lower end HDTVs get price cuts while top of the line models, less so.

You use the gift card to pick up a hard drive for the 360?

that was such a great deal, too bad i already have a 360.

OP: i don't get whats the big deal with defending your console against such stupidity, sony fanboys stating that microsoft paid walmart, could be, but who cares?

I wasn't defending my console - but simply asked a question from a person who would know if MS did the deal as many MS haters claim. That's all.

And I find it even funnier that once the myth that MS funded the $100 gift card was put to sleep, there's another one. The hate is strong with some folks. Why can't it be that Wal-Mart decided to do it for the 360? I hit a couple Wal-Marts this week and didn't see a single 360. Not a one.

1. what mileage would you get out of that?

2. what reason is there to think this is true?

I recommend this. If Wal-Mart has the Xbox Live Gold Starter Pack, I recommend you buy it with the $100 gift card. 60 GB HDD, wired headset, 3 months of xbl gold and ethernet cable. Unless you want to buy a 120 GB hard drive. Those are bloody expensive. I badly want to upgrade my 60 Gig but the prices are just outrageous. I'm doing ok with my 60 GB. I just can't have too many games installed at once.

It's no big secret that Walmart buys in massive quantities in order to sell things at such a cheap price. Is it possible they purchased a bunch of 360's and Microsoft reduced their selling price to Walmart in order for the gift card deal to work.

@Loud_Hot_White_Box

I would agree with you to some degree if the sale went on somewhere in Europe or Japan. But this is America, simply put, the 360 will sale here really well no matter what the PS3 does. The price point is what matters whenever it gets close to Christmas time and its obvious that the Wii and the 360 will still dominate price weary shoppers. So I don't think there was a problem with an "overstock" of 360's. It isn't like they just stopped selling once the PS3 got its price cut. Actually I think they are either really close or Up in yearly sales (from last year).

I don't understand. Why does it matter who paid who to get the deal done? Either way, people still got a 100$ 360.

it's a no lose for Wal Mart. at the end of the day, they aren't losing $100. at the least, they pay only $100 for each 360 arcade anyway (retail price to wholesale price is generally double, so that would be the case if it holds true for game systems, I honestly don't know), so they break even on that cost with every sale, make you buy an extra $100 in the future (which you'll probably spend over and thus pay them more for the transactions just to use it up) and make a profit on your other $100 plus of transactions while getting rid of their stock of 360's. sounds like good business to me.