XBox 360 Rally

NOTE: If this turns out to all be smoke that is being blown up my ass by lazy Wal-Mart employees, I will be royally, ROYALLY pissed!

A picture says a thousand words, doesn’t it? Here is an actual in-store flier from Wal-Mart, and you can plainly see the Xbox 360 console with the big numbers “$349″ above it. That is, in fact, an Xbox 360 Premium Console selling for $349 at Wal-Mart. But this is no sale, oh no. See the red? That’s the famous Wal-Mart “Rollback” logo, meaning that this is the NEW price of the Xbox 360 Premium!

But as of now, Microsoft hasn’t returned my many e-mails regarding the matter, so I, JW, have taken the news into my own hands, and have begun calling EVERY SUPER WAL-MART I CAN FIND, searching for answers. Little by little, the puzzle is starting to come together!

INFO GATHERED (All info gathered is subject to change with more inquiry)
Xbox 360 Elite will rollback to $399, Xbox 360 Premium to $349, and Xbox 360 Core to $299
Rollback will take effect “sometime this week”, possibly as early as Sunday.

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1st Call (2:50am) - I call the local Wal-Mart in nearby Clio, MI. I get a lovely sounding manager who is only more than happy to take my questions. I tell her who I am and why I am calling, and she redirects me to Electronics. Awesome. A man in electronics asks him, and I begin asking him questions. Turns out that he isn’t too talkative, actually saying to me “no comment”. Most suspicious.

2nd Call (3:01am) - I call a second Wal-Mart, looking for answers. I’m greeted by a gruff sounding woman, who happens to be the store manager. I tell her who I am, and ask my questions. She goes to look, and returns to tell me that it’s only the Xbox 360 Premium being rolled back in price. Or at least, that’s all she can say. I then ask her when this rollback will take effect, and she tells me, quote “the next few days.”

3rd Call (3:10am) - I’m told to call back when the store manager arrives at 7am — I’ll keep you posted.

4th Call (3:12am) - The nitwit at the counter confuses a PS3 for an Xbox 360. Yikes. After asking for his manager, I’m told that the Xbox 360 Premium is being rolled back to $349, while the Core is being rolled back to $299. I ask him when, and he tells me “sometime next week.” He advises me to call back around 8am to check with the day manager. I shall.

5th Call (3:19am) - I accidentally called some poor old man at 3:19am. I feel terrible.

5th Call 2.0 (3:21am) - I get the number right this time, and am greeted by someone who sounds an awful lot like me. He goes back to check for me, while I listen to Mustang Sally, which is playing over the phone while I’m on hold. He returns, and tells me that the Xbox 360 is being knocked down to $399 quote “this Sunday.”

6th Call (3:45am) - Met by a lovely sounding woman in Electronics who tells me that she has actually been told not to comment about the ad, but that usual Wal-Mart policy is that all rollback prices featured in newspaper/in-store ads tend to take effect “within a week”.

7th Call (3:50am) - After spending nearly twenty minutes on hold and jamming to country music, I finally get the manager… who has no idea what the hell I’m talking about. Oy freaking VEY!

8th Call (4:09am) - I get ahold of the manager, who tells me that this offer isn’t listed in her ads at all. The only item she has listed as rollback for this week is the Playstation 2.

4:13am PHONE DIES - I have to put the phone on the charger for a little bit, so this won’t be updated for a few hours. I’m going to wait until around 7 or 8am EST, and begin calling again. Rest assured, people — I WILL get answers!

PacoDG did a little research on his own while I overslept. Here is what he learned:

8:39am. Just got off Bomberman, jumped on the ol puter, seen this, called my nearest Wal Mart. I asked in this way “Hi, I need to know when the rollback pricing for the Xbox 360 consoles is going to take effect? The drop is about $50 or so for the Elite, Premium, and Core” .. the person who answers.. “Let me connect you to Electronics” .. I ask again, she said she will check her computer and put me on hold. She comes back “yeaahh. .. I didn’t see anything in the computer for a price change today, if that is going to happen, I don’t know about it, did you see this online?” Very amusing to me she asked if I see it online.

8:44 I called the next store on the list of closest ones to me. Turns out Wal Mart has these things called “Neighborhood Market Store (Store #4211)” where it is literally just that. I guess I am that out of the loop that they have just grocery specific stores now, interesting (okay, maybe not that interesting, but news to me!).

8:46 I ask again to the next store on my list, lady in electronics semi-rude and just goes “I don’t know” very bluntly.. so I ask if I can speak to her manager. I am put on hold for a very long 4 minutes (God bless my ability to multitask to keep me entertained while I wait). The same rude lady comes back on the phone and says “The manager says they have to get an email from the ‘home office’ before we can rollback prices” … I ask her to repeat it cause I typed it as she talked, I wanted to hear it straight.

I am going to sleep in a bit. I see a thread on CheapAssGamer going on right now about this same ad, I think they have some employees that will do some digging. If there is a way to get a hold of this “home office”.. no doubt they are the ones to contact. Good find!

Paco is the man, as we all know. OH! That reminds me…

9th Call (1:01pm) - This time I get a store manager, and after trying to get me to come down to “look for myself” (no doubt trying to sell me one), he went to look at his price list. I’m now on hold, listening to Freebird, and wanting to put a shotgun under my chin. He returns a moment later to simply tell me that he has no listing for any price drop.

10th Call (1:30pm) - I’m told by a rather rude son of a bitch in Electronics, quote, “our ad prices are always cheaper than our store prices”. …that doesn’t make any kind of God damn sense!

11th Call (1:33pm) - I never got to talk to anyone. They put me on hold for ten minutes before they finally hang up on me! Rude bastards!

While I’m waiting for someone to answer, I received an e-mail from a Wal-Mart “Help Center” Representative responding to my original question of the Xbox 360 Price Drop. He… or she reveals quite a lot to me!

While we are indeed planning on rolling back prices of all Xbox 360 consoles by $50-$80, we can not as of yet give a timetable for when. But you can expect it soon.

That is straight from the horses mouth, as it were. So we have a confirmation that there WILL be some kind of price drop in the near future, however Wal-Mart (at least their e-mail representatives) can’t tell us WHEN.

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Now, this is by no means a new story. Rumor of a possible Xbox 360 price drop have gone back as far as July 13th. However, my quest for answers will NOT be complete until I know for a fact the details regarding this potential price drop! Stick with me, JW, as we here at Xbox 360 Rally try to find answers!

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