Value package: Broken 360 now with matching Halo 3 disk

A coworker of mine bought Halo 3 collectors edition and ran into a little problem. He opened the box to find out that the disk had fallen off it's clip and basically scratched itself to death. So he went back to the store to return it:

Anyways to make a long story short I walked back to GameStop, and talked to the manager. He was really cool about it, and proceeded to replace the game for me. But here is where it gets crazy. He insisted that I open my copy to make sure it wasn’t torched like the last one. We went through 5 more copies before we found one that wasn’t. Do the math 6 of 7 of Microsoft’s babies were defective.

I guess it only makes sense to destroy as many copies as Halo 3 as there are red lighted Xbox360's.

In summary, if you're going to order Halo 3 online, don't get the collector's edition.

Stupid iPhone buyers cry, Apple gives them 100 dollar tissue.

Looks like in life, if you do moan and cry enough, you'll get what you want. Apple has announced that it will be giving 100 dollars of store credit to iPhone purchasers who happily threw 600 dollars at new technology two months ago.

But it seems like some people don't understand what it means to be an "early adopter". You obviously were willing to pay the 600 bucks to be one of the cool, hip, trend setters with a new unique product. That's the price you pay to be on top.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you as an early adopter, understood the risks of being first. You knew that a price drop would happen around Christmas, but you hoped the drop would be small enough to not make you look stupid. Were you surprised the price dropped? No, but 200 dollars?

Come on now, 200 dollars is the price you pay for new technology. We're talking completely new, never been done before technology. We're not talking about a newer model cellphone or an iPod with a bigger hard drive and a color screen. We're talking about a true all in one device.

So to conclude, if you're one of the people who whined, you should consider moving down the diffusion chain. One of those other groups definitely encompasses cheap whiners who want to have it their way (See late majority).

And trust me, I know what it's like to be on the wrong side of a price cut. Intel cut prices on all their popular processors back in march. And they'll probably be cutting them again soon. I could have waited, but I wanted it in March, not next year.

Personally, I'm probably in that late majority category. I definitely didn't want to pay 600 dollars. I definitely knew a price drop would happen. And now that it has, I'm still not getting it. Because 400 dollars is a lot of money, and I'm not going to be one of the whiners when the iPhone drops to 250 bucks.

It's something I can wait for, because I don't need it. When you paid 600 dollars, you made a decision. Don't blame Apple for your mistakes.

Ad supported AAA games for free!

Fileplanet has Farcry, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Rayman Raving Rabbits for free. These Ubisoft games are all ad supported (I could not find a perma-link on fileplanet, so thanks Kotoku). The ads appear on the title screen, loading screen and death screens for ten seconds each (at least for Farcry). Not too bad considering they're free. Farcry still retails for 20 bucks.

I've been a long time supporter of ads in video games. I've always considered it an interesting alternative to pricing games high. The same way broadcast TV can give you excellent tv programming (for the most part) for free.

Alternatively, more advertising support in newly developed games gives developers more funding. This allows the developers to concentrate on producing quality games instead of buckling in to publisher time line demands.

Please support Ubisoft's decision to release games for free with Advertising support. A positive reaction to this in the gaming community will only bring about more free games as other publishers experiment with the same format.