The link is for the Xbox360. Is the rumored deal on the original, or the 360?

yes, sorry. corrected text.

This is better than the jellyfish smack of the day when they had the 360 on. Hopefulyy this will be a 360 and not just the old xbox.

a lot of people are going to be a lot of money

this is gotta be some kind of mistake. but I’ll keep my eyes open anyways. thanks for the heads up, Michael.

btw, PS3 went on sale in Japan. Akihabara is in the midst of madness chaos as we speak…

http://www.asahi.com/business/.....100395.jpg

YES! I’ve wanted one of those for awhile!!!

I think collectively Microsoft and Amazon will lose about $600 on each one sold.
Bezos is a smart guy though, I’m sure there’s some upside to it. Does he still drive a Honda Accord?

Check it out!

Looking forward to it, but keep in mind that this is the ghetto “Core” bundle. It does not contain the wireless controller(s), the hard drive, the HD A/V cables, or the headset.

It looks like all that can be bought for around $200 (depending on whether you get the wired or wireless Live headset), so what you’re looking at (assuming my math is correct) is either staying at $300 Core for $100 (great value, but you miss out) or upgrading a la carte and getting the $400 bundle for $300. Still a good value, but not quite as exciting. I wonder if the ‘promotional move’ is related to having a large stock of unsold Core bundles.

I might end up waiting a few more months for the good bundle to drop in price to compete with the PS3/Wii

Wow. That’d be sweet.

Maybe we should all buy one…and never buy any games…now that would not make Microsoft happy.

Mmm, illegal dumping by convicted monopolists. Tasty.

Sounds like it could be one of those spend x amount of dollars and be able to buy the Xbox for $100.

is Canada included, too?

I already have a 360, but I definitely would get another to put in the bedroom for gaming and especially streaming video.

Dumping is when you dump things into another country for anti-competitive purposes. Frankly your language doesn’t apply in any context related to the Xbox 360 even if it was in another country but nice try.

Mr. Michael Arrington: Do not start ridiculous rumors. You should be ashamed of yourself for typing such BS.

This is FALSE. My friend works at Amazon and she clearly told there is no such thing and even asked her head supervisor.

What’s with these rumors these days.

It would make sense to sell a core unit so cheap, if combined with a second purchase say a zune.

It would also be possible with a trade in of an Xbox or PS2. Other than that possibly on Black Friday or Nov 17th PS3 day to do this as a distraction to PS3 madness!

This information is nothing but a rumor. How do we know this isn’t just a scheme to get Dugg?

Calm down people, the Core system isn’t worth even $100.

Alas! I see someone other than me actually studied in economics classes.

I see no cost benefit to do this other than eat about $175 dollars. MS is not going to do a deal like this with Amazon because they will tick of their other channel partners. Nobody will eat that much margin- if true, perhaps there is an addtional purchasing catch to this.

Poor fake story - linkbait to get additional traffic.

Not a chance the Xbox will be reduced this much

Oh my god, shutup people.

Why all the haters? Michael doesn’t post crap for no reason. Remember the GooTube fiasco. Everyone was calling out TechCrunch for baiting traffic yet alas Michael comes out and proves you all wrong. He broke the story from insiders. He took a chance because he heard something and the chance worked.

Why do you come here? For information. If Michael and the team has something to write about then they will post it. Most of the time it is correct. If it isn’t, who really cares? He is posts what he hears and he posts what he knows.

He can’t always get the scoop, but he so often does. And it is his editorial duty to post what he knows.

If you have a problem with that go read some other lame blog that aggregates all of their information from such mines as TechCrunch.

Lame.

MS can and will profit off of this.

Most people with an Xbox360 probably get Live right? I don’t know the cost exactly but I think that’s like $70 a year or something around that. That leaves $130 left to recoup. You’ll probably buy two or 3 games within a few months of owning the system, if not more. Games, minus the development and publishing costs, are the biggest kind of profit that they can make (well, not considering that the $70/year is a good deal profit as well, they just have to host some servers…). So even if they only make 50% profit on a game (what the margin is exactly I’m not sure), within 6 months you’ll most likely have brought up the profit for MS to the cost of the system, possibly even buying a hard drive and other accessories, and you will eventually become profitable, even with buying the $100 system to start out with.

Now, in your quest to profit MS, you’ll be $200 behind the game, but you will most likely do it eventually. And MS isn’t broke, so they can afford to wait a year or two, and if you keep renewing your Live membership, they have continual guarenteed profit in the future also.

MS is doing the xbox 360 moreso to compete anyway as opposed to pure profit. If all they were concerned about was raw, net profit, they wouldn’t have gotten into the games business. In other words, they are here for strategic reasons at the moment. But as the PS3 releases and is possibly set to fail, MS has a chance to take the top spot (in America anyway), something Nintendo hasn’t been able to do for awhile. So while the Xbox didn’t profit MS that much if at all, the Xbox 360 and/or future incarnations may slowly but surely turn into huge moneymakers, and they had to exist in the market as a literal nonprofit first to get there.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to know what I’m blabbering on about, these are just observations that seem pretty apt at the time

No way would they sell a 360 for $100 by itself. Maybe it you commit to three years of Live or buy a $200 accessory pack with. Also it would probably require a rebate which only have about a 50% fulfillment rate. Lastly, I would wonder if they’re collaborating with MS on this and if the Core system’s days are numbered - maybe they’ll drop the 20GB package by $100 and introduce a 80gb model at $400. Either way, MS is obviously prepared to battle Sony this month.

OMFG…..finially..my lil bro can get his own 360 and he wont have to use mine…yay…lol

You all realize that if you clicked that amazon link TechCrunch stand to get an affiliate commision on all your purchases from Amazon in the next 30 days (check out the amazon affiliate ID in the link).

Nice idea for linkbait Michael.

Whats wrong with Mike making some money off sharing this news with us? I’d never have known and the price won’t be any higher to me — Amazon should pay people for helping get the word out.

This has nothing to do with Microsoft…

Amazon just wants to empty out the Core stock since no one buys the cores… This will get people to buy them.

I know, my friend works for Amazon, and says this is going to likely happen if they can’t get rid of more of the cores.

Its a scam made up by a Sony representative to kill xbox360 sales this christmas by lying to the community to not buy xbox360s till they “find out” that it MIGHT be on sale for $100

The reasoning behind such a move is quite evident. Whether or not we actually see this happen is another.

Arrington: Good job. No matter what anyone here says, the fact of the matter is that we are all here to read news, right? The news isnt always right but we have to trust the journalists to provide us with authoritative “rumors” and if the Google- Youtube deal is any indication, it would seem that Michael and the rest of the TechCrunch team prefer to post only that which they believe to be true.

And true it was, in regards to Gootube - so why is it that everyone is so quick to jump to conclusions such as TechCrunch is linkbaiting and just trying to get Dugg. Has it occurred to anyone that TC is dugg several times a day? I seriously doubt that Team Arrington decided they needed at least one more article on Digg.

And for those who are complaining about the affiliate id in the Amazon link… Who cares? Are you paying for TechCrunch? Somebody is, and that somebody needs to make the money back. It doesnt affect you in any way personally, so why bother to waste time, effort and a few kilobytes of bandwidth to complain about such a thing.

Jason Weisberger said: “Amazon should pay people for helping get the word out.”

They are, it’s called affiliate commission. However, if it turns out to be link bait, all the visitors have just been duped into clicking the amazon link.

Also, Microsoft DONT want this. It devalues their brand to being the bargin alternative to the PS3 which is not how they want to position the XB360.

It’s well known economics that a cheap price doesn’t always mean good value in the consumers mind.

Sounds like bs. I wouldn’t believe it.

There is no affiliate link in any of the links in that post.

So what’s the word, is this some joke. Or you are 50% sure about it? either way If you are not 100% sure what’s the use? I was about to buy a system this week just after I bought my High Def projector And I ran across this thread and thought I should give it a few days but I need to experience some major Gears of War!. So is it worth the wait man. Please fill us in more  or just e-mail me the insight lol. I don’t think I can wait two weeks. I just might have to freeze myself!

{KLOZ}

this is a hoax to generate refferal fees for ‘pd_bbs_sr_3′

every single blog has this id inbedded in the link.

if you’re so paranoid about referrers, just paste in
http://www.amazon.com/Microsof.....000B43OXU/

I will be very interested to see if this is actually true. It might be a bait-and-switch type of deal. They only allow let’s say 10 or 20 people buy it at this great low price.

Also, it’s a great marketing tactic. It gets the name “xbox” in major internet headlines

Its would be so kool if i happened on Tuesday and i got one … would be a great bday present.

will it be this week or next week?

“pd_bbs_sr_3″ isn’t a referral link, it’s a reftag. Amazon uses them internally to track links around its site. (In this case, it refers to “search result #3″ — try searching on Amazon.com itself to verify this.) Referral links are the ones that look like “something-20″

an unreal claim, coupled with a denial of an affiliate link when one is explicitely present?
thats not paranoia plonk, thats common sense.

also once the ref link is utilized the ref id still receives a smaller bonus for up to a week or so for ANYTHING purchased at amazon, even if its not followed with a ref link afterwards. i know this because i myself am an amazon affiliate.

original link:
http://www.amazon.com/Microsof.....videogames

“There is no affiliate link in any of the links in that post.”
- Michael Arrington

“I’m not a crook!”
- Dick Nixon

I love it! You cry conspiracy based on a referral link in the url? You expect us to believe that tens of thousands of users clicking the link will find the system at regular price. . .and buy it?

Morons. . .

Either way the deal does sound too good to be true. Here’s to hoping. . .

since youre the only one to cry ‘conspiracy’ in this thread, does that by your own post make you a moron?

blog spam is not a ‘conspiracy,’ its just annoying.

kind of like posts that insult a point of view only to admit sharing that point of view by the end of them.

Any update on this?

I have a strong suspicion this move is only to liquidate stocks of existing XBOX360s. There is probably a second generation XBOX360 in the works (probably with a built-in HD-DVD player to counter PS3)

updates??

i fell for it

@smash, who cares if he gets money? if him having readers click on links too often that don’t offer what he says they will, he’ll lose readers. don’t like it? don’t click on the link/article

@foo_per, there’s no reason for MS to make an xbox with HD DVD built in. it’s just an extra $50-150 piece of hardware that not everyone will make use of. i like that you can just get the drive if an old one breaks. however, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether MS will stick to “their word” that no games will come on HD DVD. (a company’s “word” seems to be going to shit in the current generation of mudslinging and outrageous claims .. but it’s mostly Sony’s word i don’t trust at the time)

@smash: A deal sounding too good to be true, doesn’t necessarily equate to some affiliate scam. you explicitly said this is a hoax to generate referral revenue. maybe you need to look up the word conspiracy.

I’m highly suspicious about this post as well. But I still signed up for the RSS feed for the Xbox 360 @ Amazon.

I doubt this is a amazon referral scheme. Amazon doesn’t pay for page views, it pays for sales. So the poster would only make money — as others have said — if people click thru on his referral (which I understand isn’t even there), add the xbox to their cart, and then buy it.

I think it is more likely — if the poster really is looking for ad revenue — that he is taking advantage of all the pageviews for his inline ads — some of which may pay a very small amount per page-view. But then again, if he is, so what. It’s his blog he has the headache to maintain, and presumably he pays the bandwidth bills — so why shouldn’t he post revenue. At least he labels it as a rumor — and if it turns out to be a hoax — well it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened, has it?

– Mr. Shiney

http://mrshiney.froppy.com/blog/

@51. in no way hoax equals conspiracy. a conspiracy can and more often than not is a hoax but the other way around is alot more exlusive. feel free to investigate dictionary definitions for this…

my original post was a responce to michaels claim that there were no affiliate links in that post, which i desputed by poiniting out the exact part that was identifying the affiliate. anyone with ad funded blogging experience would recognize this.

and if you think that the refferer gets nothing if that xbox is not bought at the ful price (which its still at right now) you are wrong again. as i mentioned in my original post as well, the program still gives you a % of any other purchases the duped visitor makes on amazon withing a few days after clickign the refferal link. this is to give a benefit of a odubt tha tthe shopper was reffered to what ever eother purchase he/she made by following the original link. only difference is the percentage is alot less.

calculate the amount of exposure this claim made (i saw it reffered on at least 8 other blog sites, with the exact same referal link in it) and the potential of a good refferal bonus grows exponentially.

i have an abandoned site with an embedded link from 1998 which still makes me about 100$ a year from the scant few visitors it gets who dont even buy the things i have on it.

if you are going to despute something, atleast bring some insight to the table. dont waste your time with claims that have already been addressed before hand.

how do you sign up for the RSS feed for a product at amazon??

Here’s the link….

http://amazon.com/gp/holiday/cv/homepage

Check out the product page. It will be offered for $100 and there will be a quantity of 1000 on Thanksgiving day only, if it is the winning vote in their Customer Votes campaign.

Here’s the link to vote, in case any body is interested. It is winning so far with 70% of the votes.

stop posting about it people, the more people who find out about it, the less chance you have to get one

seriously, does anyone actually believe that they’ll be able to get one? This deal is everywhere on the web right now. I suspect that tens of thousands of people are going to be hitting the site at the designated time - thereby making it damn near impossible to actually load the page (let alone actually getting one of the cheap systems).

I absolutely hate that Amazon is pulling this. If they want to really give their customers a deal they should do a one customer/one unit kind of thing. That way anyone who really wanted one would actually have a chance of getting one.

cry me a river ethan

Smash… Search anything in amazon.. and hover over the links one by one.. you will see that “pd_bbs_sr_3″ will show up in the link for the 3rd link… in the 2nd link it will be “pd_bbs_sr_2″.. and the 1st “pd_bbs_sr_1″ and so forth..

You did not point out the exact part that identifies the affliate link as you said.

There’s the insite you wanted to be brought to the table.

ps This doesn’t mean it isn’t an affliate link. All I’m pointing out is that what you’re using as evidence is wrong. Who knows, it might be an affiate link(I could certainly see him doing that) but “pd_bbs_sr_3″ surely doesn’t prove that.

smash you sure you are not working for Sony and not Amazon?

Amazon is doing it guys. 1000 pieces.
Actually that’s a sustem of vote but so far 88% for a xbox360 at 100$ !!!
Only sign customer can vote!
Here is how it’s work (from amazon website)
How This Works

* Only the deal elected by customers will be offered. Every customer may vote once per week.
* Only the quantities listed will be available at the winning price.
* All products are brand new.
* Voting closes Tuesday at 9 p.m. Pacific Time, and the winner will be announced Wednesday at 11 a.m. Pacific Time.
* The winner will go on sale Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, at 11 a.m. Pacific Time. Be here!
* Increase your odds of scoring the deal by reading our buying tips.

I’m so buying it next thursday!

Cheers!

Pierre

my bad I didn’t see the other comments, so that’s not much a surprise then…

My guess is that they are all going to be sold by 11:01 on Thanksgiving. I’ve been practicing my clicking skills. Watch out.

Well on Ebay people are claiming and selling links to this deal. They say you will need to get this special link to get the 100$ deal. Anyway if you want to accually have a chance log on to amazon now and wait because if you wait you will never even be able to log in. There will be atleast a million people tryin to log in that day and time. It’s a great scam for amazon they will release only a few at the 100$ special and I’m sure they will have other so called specials available if you miss out.

Can you do the single click to buy or do you have to fill out all the information again

nevermind i found it on the website

Funny how everyone was so convinced this was fake earlier.

Well, it’s 11:00 and the site crashed. Looks like nobody’s getting one.

Their servers are so bogged down I can’t even connect

It is 11:08 and the deal went live at 11:00. I still haven’t been able to get the page or any other part of the site to load … in otherwords, Amazon has created a DOS attack on themselves.

Can anyone get on? This is bullshit.

Stupid stuff sold out before my page even finished loading. F you amazon for making me get up @ 11 am on a holiday!!! I wonder if the site will crash next week when people rush into buy earrings or a power drill!!!

It is sold out. =p

As soon as I got through (11:10am) I got the message that it’s Sold Out. How could anyone possibly log in?

How much money do you think Amazon has lost on this?

I was logged in and waiting at the page for 30min.

But when the time came, nothing happend.

Hit refresh and nothing, just spinning wheels, that was 12min ago…

Well, that was useless… the site was completely unreachable, and now that it is, the deal is gone…

Its all bullshit, appeared to be sold out at 11:00:12 (according to my clock).

1000 units my ass.

BASTARDS! I was waiting since 10:45…reloading, and the site never let me in past 10:57. Sold out. How could that be !?

Because its a scam.

Such bullshit.

What a joke, Amazon should have been prepared.

Well, who knows if Amazon even has to prove they sold any.

With only 1000 available and millions trying, who can prove if they really had 1000 available.

Amazon didnt even sell the units, i bet it was a trick.

I’d like to know what made those 1000 people so special.

i hate amazon. i wasted thanksgiving for this. its 2:16 here.

How did anyone even process a transaction to even buy one???? The site was down for 15 minutes basically.

the website went black at 1:58 Est, then 2:06 sold out, theres something really shady.

even the runner-ups were dead

If they had 1000 units, it’s likely that they were never sold since NOONE could get through. I made it to Amazon, but the links are “dead/not refreshing”
We will see….

LETS ALL START A RIOT AND STEAL XBOX 360’s !!!!!!!

haha

I came in right at 11:00:15 and it was availble. Once we inputted the answer it asked (maybe 20 seconds), amazon said that they were out of codes.

I think that it is cheap.

Seriously, who could login (I was already login) in 35 seconds and get one that fast. Apparently 1000 people.

It’s not very fair, but I guess that’s life.

Seriously, I was logged in and waiting on that site hitting refresh every few mins half an hour in advance.

Right around 10:56pst I hit refresh and the thing bogged down. Never got a new screen until just now 11:18.

How anyone could have made it through is beyond me given how early the bogging started.

My guess is that either they didn’t really have 1000 available, or hell, they set them up for friends and family and just claim they were there for us to try to get.

There were tons of hits ansd some made it through. Sucks for us.

There should be a fraud investigation into this. Send the AMAZON BASTARDS to JAIL !!!!!!!

SCREW YOU AMAZON BASTARDS - SCREW YOUS ALL

Althougth I didn’t actually get the XBOX, I was actually able to get to the deal. I clicked on “get this deal”, and was then asked to answer a simple math question (12+18). This was almost exACTly at 2pm EST, and as soon as I answered the question, agreed to the terms, anc clicked ‘Continue’, I was told they were sold out. Very frustrating. If anyone actually got the XBOX, let us know so we know if it was a scam or not.

Yeah, that’s pretty ridiculous, so far it seems that no one got in at all since the site was basically unloadable.

What I wonder is, did the promotion come out helping them or hurting them more in the end?

Does Amazon get brownie points for trying to offer “Exciting deals” or get hammered for pissing off alot of people with a situation that made them all feel unfairly treated?

I didn’t really expect to win one, assuming they were available the odds were small, but like they didn’t know the kind of traffic to expect?

I actually was waiting since 9:00 for the promo. I had firefox extensions check if the page was updated. But then firefox couldn’t connect so I used IE on another compy

I hate amazon. I think this is a scam. The site stops responding between 10:58 - 11:10 Am and then the deals shows up sold out.

Amazon Sucks.