If you know anyone who enjoys home shopping channels and might use them to do some of their holiday gift-getting this year, you might want to tell them to avoid QVC’s recent Wii package.
The Consumerist reports that they are offering a bundle which includes the Wii with Wii Sports, the title Go Play Circus Star Games, and Wii Remote accessories for a steering wheel, gun, baseball bat, tennis racket, and golf club, all for $349 (plus $13.97 for shipping and handling).
Of course, go to retail, the Wii with Wii Sports is but $199.99. The game, sold new at GameStop, is $14.99, the sports package is $19.99, and the gun grip is $5.99 at Sears. All together, that comes out to $239.97, plus tax.
That’s quite a bit of difference, especially for a crappy game and a bunch of cheap accessories no one wants. Well, at least, in theory– QVC has reportedly sold over 2,800 of these.
In the time since the above deal was first spotted, however, the price was slashed to $318.20 before tax, shipping and handling, making the difference only $80, rather than the $109.03 difference it was before.
And while hyperbole is to be expected in sales, it seems that QVC is outright lying in some regards, as ‘all through out the show they were saying that the wii was going to be “rare”. They were also saying that the Wii had true HD output which is totally untrue (unless 480p is considered HD).’
Not only is it not HD, but Nintendo has said there should be no shortage this holiday, either.
So… yeah. As I said at the top of the post, if you know anyone who watches this stuff, you should probably find a way to break the news to them that this is probably the worst way to get the Wii.
