It sounds like a dream come true, if out of no where a man emerges from a dark alley with the promise of free electronics. What sinister, hidden altertive notions could he be hiding?
Well, if that man had a name it would be Microsoft, because they're offering a free Xbox 360 to all valid U.S. students after May 20th. It's the perfect graduation present, or the best way to say, "[College age offspring], you've earned the right to play nothing but Mass Effect 3 for the next three months until you go back to school." Of course, it'd be cheaper to just buy them an Xbox in the first place.
The offer, which was avaliable last year as well, is valid only if the student buys a $699+ "qualifying Windows PC" from a select retailer according to the Windows Blog. Canadian students, however, get their chance at a Glowing Green Ring of fun starting May 18th and only need to drop $599 on a laptop or PC.
After all, it sounds like a decent deal, right? Not really. As it stands, the 4 gig Xbox is essentially $115.00 now, or as Fwd calls it "the $.99 Big Mac." What's the special sauce equivalent for an Xbox? Try shipping with a Kinect. That shows up in none of the language on the Windows Team blog for the free Xbox that shows up with your brand new laptop. They break it down further:
"The new plan introduces subsidized cellphone-style pricing to a gaming console / media box - Microsoft fronts part of the hardware cost, and buyers make it up with subscription fees. The two-year contract with an early-termination fee mirrors a cellphone contract (or the late '90s and early 2000s of PC buying, where signing up for an ISP could knock some bucks off your PC's purchase price). Which seems weird, but consider that a lot of what Microsoft does is already effectively a kind of subscription service - businesses buy new versions of Windows and Office every few years - and subscriptions are more and more prevalent in consumer tech in general, as everything moves to services and platforms: You pay $10 a month for Spotify instead of a dollar per song or $8 for Netflix instead of $2 per TV show. Even Adobe's moving to subscriptions for the next version of its Creative Suite. The net effect is that you're locked in until you cancel; then you lose everything. So you'll probably stick around."
So, you could spend the money on a brand new PC to justify your free Xbox that may or may not ship with Kinect, or you could just ignore the laptop, spend the cash to get a decent bundle--maybe wait for the school year to start back up and get the Halo 4 bundle with your $99 XBox? Either way, Microsoft will find someway to needle you for the other fees, whether it be through Gold Memberships or the offer of free maps in Halo if you just offer up your first-born and a chunk of student loans.
via Polygon
