All you Wii gamers looking to catch a deal or two, get your wallets and one-click purchases ready because Amazon.com is holding a Wii Gold Box event tomorrow, March 31st. On the official Gold Box forum, the Amazon Gold Box team posted:

All Wii Games, All Day. Make sure to visit the Gold Box on March 31 for six great Nintendo Wii video game deals. Happy gaming.

Tomorrow’s the day, so make sure you check them out and see what kind of deals they have to offer. You never know if they’ll have MadWorld on the cheap.

Source

Some of you may instantly reply “Duh!” to that headline, but as a fan of the Fallout series, I wanted to get it all. The Amazon exclusive ‘Survival Edition’ was a pre-order special that cost a whopping $129.99 — that’s right, a full fifty bucks more than the Collector’s Edition. While the package itself is quite nice, the only thing you get in the Survival Edition that you don’t get in the Collector’s Edition is the Pip-Boy clock, and therein lies my problem.

We did an article recently describing how limited/collector’s/special editions tend to lose their value at a much slower rate than standard edition games, and sometimes actually increase in value like their name implies they should. Amazon’s Survival Edition was exclusive to people who pre-ordered the game from their website. That was the only place you were ever going to get it.

Considering the assumed limited quantity, some people seem to have purchased it with the intent of reselling as there have already been listings of the Survival Edition at a jacked-up price, like $300. I, on the other hand, bought it because I was a fan and I wanted that Pip-Boy!

For an extra $50, I assumed the Pip-Boy was going to be awesome. It’s not. While it might be awesome for a cosplayer since it has a hinge and can be snapped onto your arm (not my arm, for I’m way too buff), its only option is to be battery powered — there is no way to plug it in.

So here you have a digital clock that looks like a Pip-Boy, and all it’s really good for is telling time. It sits on its poorly crafted ‘display stand’ (I broke a piece putting it together) and that’s it. It doesn’t even have an alarm. While you may be thinking “What did you expect?”, quite honestly I expected more than a cheap ‘replica’ of a Pip-Boy made out of toy-gun plastic if I was being charged $50 for it.  How about some metal or high-quality resin.

Everything else in the title picture is part of the Collector’s Edition, which was $79.99. The only thing you get extra in the Survival Edition is the Pip-Boy. Amazon no longer sells the Survival Edition (and you can’t even read the description any more), so those of you who may have thought that you missed out should rest easy knowing that you didn’t… at all. The Collector’s Edition contains everything you should want, especially the game, and is a much better deal. I would have been much happier if I had purchased it instead — the bobblehead and lunchbox are pretty sweet.

I am actually envious that you have me to tell you to not be me and waste that money.  And yes, that sentence totally made sense.

UPDATE: I thought it was just me, but commenter Koreeth had the same problem, so I’m assuming it’s more widespread. In addition to the cheapy crapness that encompasses the Pip-Boy clock, it also manages to burn through those only-power-option batteries in a week. That’s bullshit. Now every time I look at it, I expect the display to read “Sucker”… and maybe it would if it could only hold a charge long enough.

There’s been quite a bit of evidence for a new Xbox 360 sku, or at least a sign that Microsoft will be putting out new models, whether they have any major hardware additions or not. Apparent shortages in the United States, a bigger appearance at this weeks GDC, and now Amazon.com are adding to the pile.

After January’s NPD numbers were released, the Xbox 360 fell behind the Playstation 3 for the first time in the US. Microsoft and gamers alike pointed to a console shortage for the lower sales numbers. It is unlikely that Microsoft simply misjudged their market, since there has been no major growth in sales over last year. So with shortages expected to continue until March, Microsoft may well be holding something back.

It’s possible that production has ended on the current consoles and has moved onto a newly improved selection, either with new features, or simply with an improved chipset.

Amazon.com adds to the intrigue by suggesting that almost every Xbox 360 sku has been “Discontinued by the manufacturer.” Many of the consoles appear to be in stock on the website, but with such an odd statement underneath each of them, it’s hard not to infer that Microsoft are getting ready to re-stuff the channels with new and improved consoles.

Will Microsoft be announcing a new Xbox 360 at this weeks GDC? Or will things carry on as normal, while they improve the chipset behind closed doors?

Merry Christmas, Nintendo! For the second year in a row, the Nintendo Wii is one of the must-have holiday items. And although I’m completely aware of the console’s success, I was still pleasantly surprised to see just how well the company was doing on Amazon.

Amazon’s videogames best sellers list goes as follows:

1. Nintendo Wii Console
2. Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii
3. Wii Remote Controller
4. Wii Nunchuk Controller
5. Crackdown for Xbox 360
6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Xbox 360
7. Wii Points Card
8. Wii Play with Wii Remote
9. Wii Zapper with Link’s Crossbow Training
10. Wii Charge Station

The thought of all those little children running amok with their Wii Zappers blasting just warms my cold heart. The list changes hourly, and while the positions have been shifting somewhat, the same items have been there for several hours.

As a Nintendo fanboy, I’m pretty ecstatic. It’s also nice to see Call of Duty 4 doing so well, because I personally believe it’s the best game of the year. As for Crackdown? That seems out of the blue, but I think I remember Amazon having it on sale for $19.99 a little while back, which would explain its presence.

Amazon.com has finally started their pre-orders for the highly anticipated PS3 exclusive, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. According to the site, it will be officially released on May 31st in Europe and then one month later in North America on June 30th.

We have yet to receive an official comment from Konami’s PR department, though we have left several messages. At this time, we have no further information details to report other than the amazon pre-order list.

One thing is for sure though, if this does hold true, we will see a lot of MGS4 copies leaving Europe and making their way overseas to North America in during that one month time gap.