A 360 price drop around E3 was going around for a couple of months now and it seems India is the first place where Microsoft’s axe has fallen, from Rs. 19,990 to Rs. 15,990, although it’s not exactly a steal deal because you are getting this drop in exchange for your old gaming console.
This is where it gets murky, I called one of the guys and asked them if I could actually get the four grand rebate off my ancient NES (inset a sarcastic laugh), the answer was a flat “NO” (obviously), he added that they were only looking at CD based consoles, so I asked them if I could get it for the “graphical whorehouse of 1996”, the PSOne. He curtly replied with a “NO”, they wanted only three consoles, the PS2, Xbox and the PSP. The GameCube was left out of the list (I’d never exchange the GCN… Halo can never match up to Metroid).
The funny bit, however, is the fact that I can go and get a Premium version in the grey market for 20 grands and I get a high exchange price for the PSP (somewhere around six), I’d get three to four grand off anyway on my old console which makes the effective price in the grey market somewhere around 16-17 grand, all this makes the official deal somewhat sour.
This offer is only available for the “Core version”, which sucks outright, but it is a smart marketing move by Micro$oft nonetheless, given how expensive the god damn tariff barriers are and the taxes imposed on top of that, this is the best the company can do at this point of time.
“The offer is valid from May 21, 2007 to June 5, 2007 or till stocks”, last claims the advertisement. Stocks will last all right given the Core systems failure globally including India, but for those who were really dying for an offer such as this, you guys can feel free to “JUMP IN” to the M$ bandwagon.
–Neelesh Mukherjee