If you dont know Wal Mart has buy the Arcade for $199 get a $100 gift card deal today, (they also have great deals on a few TV's etc, almost a mini black friday that people are lining up for) effectively making a $99 360. It is also available through Wal Mart.com
Amazon just announced they are price matching the deal today at 9AM and 3PM, in something they call a lightning deal or something (these sell out in minutes also) with a $100 off promo code on 360 Arcade.
I believe Wal Mart gaurenteed 10 Xbox 360's per store minimum, I'm not sure, but I think I read that somewhere.
But there are people at cheapassgamer.com already in line, one said his store got a pallet of 50 Xbox's for the deal and another said 30. Those where the only two who mentioned a quantity.
I looked it up and there are about 3500 Wal Mart stores in the USA, so if they average 30 per store for this deal, it's 105,000 360's! If it's average 40, 140,000. If it's 50, 175,000.
Then throw in however much Amazon and Wal Mart.com sell!
So it's going to be a big day for sold 360's!
Is this a harbinger of things to come? Will a future permanent $99 Xbox 360 Arcade fly off the shelves for Microsoft? I believe so. Microsoft did not price cut this year (not really) so you better believe they will lop at least $50 off next year. Meanwhile with Sony reporting large losses in the gaming division I dont expect them to cut price in 2010.
Edit: Just read a third stock report of a store with only 12 in stock. Still, that keeps the average at 12+50+30/3=32 per store. Plus the .com sales.
Edit2: a 4th report of 33 stock. Edit 3 a 5th report of 7 stock. Edit 4 new reports of 25 and 13.
More reports: 2 and 18. also word that it's supposed to be a minimum 10 per store, even though the one store supposedly had 2.
