Wednesday, November 01, 2006

EA from behind, and Halo 3 cubed.

Ok I've heard the rants about microtransactions on 1UPYours podcast for the last couple episodes, and some I'm starting to believe. For those of you unaware types, microtransactions are the little things you buy from the LIVE marketplace with your Microsoft points. These range from your LIVE arcade games (DOOM, Time Pilot, etc..) to horse armor packs for Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion, or in the case of EA cheat codes. It started with the Godfather content about a week ago, you could unlock various 'stuff' in the game for a price. Ranging from 75 points to 400 points you could get in game cash, henchmen or weapon upgrades or EA was nice and put up a discount package where you could get all of the unlockables for 800 points ($5). The problem being is all of this stuff could be unlocked by playing the game, that is why you bought it right? Well hot on the heals comes the Need for Speed : Carbon content, yes indeed 11 packs totaling 3940 points that's $49.23 for those of you wondering. That shiny new game you picked up for $59.99 is now running $109.22 not including tax. :( Now in all fairness to EA one of the packs is the collector's edition upgrade for 800 points ($10) you get all the extras from the CE version of the game which is no cheaper or more expensive than getting it at retail. I would say that no one will buy this crap so it will go away swiftly, but even I know that's not true. What is that saying about a stupid person born every minute??

On a brighter note, Halo 3 is now available for pre-order at GameStop/EB Games , coming in 3 editions (regular, collector's, and legendary) hitting your wallet for $59.99, $69.99, and $99.99 supposedly on November 7, 2007. Let's just jump to the monster legendary set, 4 disc packaged in a replica Spartan helmet that measures 8x10.5x11 you can place your pre-orders for $5,$10, and $25 depending on how far you want to go. Did the latest Famitsu magazine in Japan give us our first glimpse of the legendary set in their Halo 3 preview in this picture?

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