Wanna Xbox 360? Be Prepared to Spend BIG ...

Word is going around that some less scrupulous retailers are contacting customers and telling them that in order to secure their pre-order, they need to purchase some accessories and games with it as well. Apparently, pre-orders will not be first-come, first-served, but will be distributed to those who are willing to pay the most.

As if the ridiculous bundles that companies like GameStop and EB were forcing on customers wasn't enough. Sigh ... I suppose it was just a matter of time. For those that are unaware, there is pretty much zero profit (for retailers) margin on the base hardware for a console launch. When there is no profit, but there are costs involved in stocking and distributing the hardware, you end up with a financial loss. The only way to make that up is through attachment ... selling shit with the console. That's why you'll sometimes hear analysts talking about the attachment rates of some games to a given console. The Holy Grail of attatchment rates is of course, 1:1. 1:10 is considered very good. Nintendogs has just about a 1:8 attach ratio to the DS.

Basically, this post is just to remind you that unless you are independently wealthy, getting a console at launch without paying through the nose or waiting in an interminable line is highly unlikely. Personally, since I'm not getting my Xbox 360 through my normal channels, I'll be choosing the wait in line mode myself.