How badly do you want the Microsoft Xbox 360?  How much money can you burn in a single transaction?  Topping the EBGames $700 bundle mentioned this morning is the GameStop $1200 Xbox bundle, netting customers/marks basically everything announced for the Xbox 360: console, controllers, eleven games, Xbox Live subscription, and so forth.  Next Generation has a few choice words on the matter.

Quite frankly, these bundles have made a mockery of the core pricing that Microsoft put forward at $299.  The fact that the "core" system at Gamestop, costs $699 is just plain silly. We question what consumer (any consumer) would spend such a sum and not get a hard drive?  While calls to real, local storefronts for Gamestop and EB have both confirmed that it is possible to pre-order these systems in the Microsoft prescribed core and regular bundles (for now anyway), the fact that there's no capability of doing so in the online stores seems almost tantamount to Ebay-robbery.

What makes this bundle all the more outrageous is the opening line on GameStop's Xbox page: "Don't overpay in online auctions for the latest in video game technology!"  So we should overpay in their online store instead?