Best Buy Sells Free PS3 Upgrades

http://dualshockers.com/2010/10/01/best-buy-sells-free-ps3-upgrades/

In what can only be described as a new low, Best Buy has decided to take advantage of uneducated PS3 consumers. They are now in the business of selling firmware upgrades to their clients, which unless something changed, are free for anyone with a wifi connection and take little to no effort.

Here is a shot of what the Best Buy in Staten Island NYC is promoting:

In case it is unclear I will break it down for you. Best Buy has the audacity to charge $329.98 for a 120 gb PS3 Slim, which normally will cost you $299.99. So what are you paying an extra $30 for? A firmware upgrade! A free one that is as simple to do as turning your PS3 on.

Best Buy actually advertises it as "Eliminates Bugs and Glitches" and "Play All Blu-Ray Movies and Games." This is beyond misleading to anyone who does not realize that is totally an unnecessary service.

What do you think? I can't believe they are getting away with this, I guess the old saying is true… there is a sucker born every second and Best Buy is inspecting their wallets.

if i lived close to one ied pay them to be the ones that had to wait for the updates so i didnt have to every other week

How does paying $130 to plug in and turn on the ps3 sound?

*facepalm*

seriously? :|

▲ Well, it's the consumers responsibility to be informed. This is just funny. ▲

How does paying $130 to plug in and turn on the ps3 sound?

DroidPhysX

I blame Sony for not getting after Best Buy. [spoiler] :lol: [/spoiler]

They better watch out. Things like that are how class action lawsuits start.

Customers' fault.siLVURcross

Not quite, it really would be unfair for someone who knows nothing about cars to buy a brand new one for extra because of some promised extra upgrades and find he/she was ripped off. Same here, just because you don't know much its still stupid to rip unkowing consumers like this. Of course you have to give them props for trying something so blatantly reminiscent of Activision as a whole.

I hope Sony doesn't sell hardware to Best Buy anymore. I expect lawsuits up the ass.

I hope Sony doesn't sell hardware to Best Buy anymore. I expect lawsuits up the ass.

Locutus_Picard

Yeah they love to steal from the consumer.

How does paying $130 to plug in and turn on the ps3 sound?

DroidPhysX

I'd pay $29 so I don't have to use PSN's crappy servers :P Nah, but seriously people buy this stuff all the time, and as long as they do, services like this will continue to exist. It's like the DLC everyone complains about, if there wasn't a market for something, it wouldn't exist. There are PS3's for 299.99 sitting right next to these i'm guessing, because they can't, legally, only have preloaded PS3's, they have to also have retail priced systems available.

Yeah they love to steal from the consumer.

NVIDIATI

That's actually the definition of a business you see.

There you have it.

I'd like to install my foot so deep in their ass that they need Sony tech support to pry it apart.

consumers knows the ps3 is a quality product so they will cough up the cash by any means and imho most ps3 only owners are well off so this fee is nothing to them its like maid service

oh boy *shacks head*

I'd like to install my foot so deep in their ass that they need Sony tech support to pry it apart.

Locutus_Picard

Why the hostility?

As a person who works at a place that does computer work for the customers, you can't begin to imagine how many people pay $50+ for something they can do themselves in probably less than a quarter of the time we do it in. You could call it a low for BB, but you can also call it a low for the people who are lazy and won't do it for themselves.

As a person who works at a place that does computer work for the customers, you can't begin to imagine how many people pay $50+ for something they can do themselves in probably less than a quarter of the time we do it in. You could call it a low for BB, but you can also call it a low for the people who are lazy and won't do it for themselves.

Legendaryscmt

Kind of like when I pay for work on my car that I could do, because I would rather pay to have it done quickly than waste my own time.

if you had to pay $30 every time the ps3 updates it would average out to around $90 a week.

if you had to pay $30 every time the ps3 updates it would average out to around $90 a week.

Riverwolf007

I think this calls for:

Geek Squad strikes again... :roll:

[QUOTE="NVIDIATI"]

Yeah they love to steal from the consumer.

tempest91

That's actually the definition of a business you see.

[QUOTE="tempest91"]

[QUOTE="NVIDIATI"]

Yeah they love to steal from the consumer.

NVIDIATI

That's actually the definition of a business you see.

Quite right.

[QUOTE="tempest91"]

[QUOTE="NVIDIATI"]

Yeah they love to steal from the consumer.

NVIDIATI

That's actually the definition of a business you see.

[QUOTE="tempest91"]

That's actually the definition of a business you see.

[QUOTE="Locutus_Picard"][QUOTE="NVIDIATI"] Oh I know, I work in the field of medicine and profits are astonishing. But this is just pushing it. Though like they say caveat emptor.

NVIDIATI

Just another way companies can steal from normal people legally. I swear that if I ever be president of my country I will allow people to steal back from companies like that. It's only fair.

Or maybe they are just chargng for the download times :P

[QUOTE="NVIDIATI"][QUOTE="Locutus_Picard"] You study medicine in Amerika? I bet medics are revolting against Obama there?Locutus_Picard

consumers knows the ps3 is a quality product so they will cough up the cash by any means and imho most ps3 only owners are well off so this fee is nothing to them its like maid service

_SWAG_

[QUOTE="Riverwolf007"]

if you had to pay $30 every time the ps3 updates it would average out to around $90 a week.

Locutus_Picard

I laughed when I saw that. I feel kinda bad for the people that actually fall for something like that.

Ok, I will excuse your ignorance here. Because I admit unless you knew how our inventory and stocking works that would seem a bit silly. That however is just a random software security case, originally it could have housed any number of PC related programs in which case the sticker would have applied. After a while though the cases just get thrown together and our AP will case what ever piece of software needs to be cased. The main purpose of the case is theft deterence, not advertisement.

There you have it.

davidkamayor

I work at Best Buy in the Product Process field, a mixture of Inventory/Loss Prevention. If anyone here thinks this is a new practice they are sadly mistaking. I can't go into real numbers because that cause for termination of employment, but I will say that if this shocks you than you don't even want to begin to fathom how much money we make putting software disc into PCs and spending 5 min installing some various program we just sold a customer. Geek Squad services are extremely popular, people shell out big bucks for our pre-configured PCs and systems that they could easily have done themselves.

We don't cheat or scam people. Our sales assosciates will explain everything to the best of their abilities. We never try to push some high end product on someone else just to make an extra buck, when people give us a price range we will show them a great and affordable Dynex TV instead of trying to push the latest and greatest Sony or Samsung LED lit display that will run them in the hole with a credit card.

The simple fact of the matter is technology scares some people and others just don't want to fool with it. It is worth it to some people out there to throw down $30, or in some cases even upwards of $200 to just "be done with it" and have everything on there when they pull it out of the box.

Ok, I will excuse your ignorance here. Because I admit unless you knew how our inventory and stocking works that would seem a bit silly. That however is just a random software security case, originally it could have housed any number of PC related programs in which case the sticker would have applied. After a while though the cases just get thrown together and our AP will case what ever piece of software needs to be cased. The main purpose of the case is theft deterence, not advertisement.

[QUOTE="davidkamayor"]

There you have it.

GrumpyWalrus

I work at Best Buy in the Product Process field, a mixture of Inventory/Loss Prevention. If anyone here thinks this is a new practice they are sadly mistaking. I can't go into real numbers because that cause for termination of employment, but I will say that if this shocks you than you don't even want to begin to fathom how much money we make putting software disc into PCs and spending 5 min installing some various program we just sold a customer. Geek Squad services are extremely popular, people shell out big bucks for our pre-configured PCs and systems that they could easily have done themselves.

We don't cheat or scam people. Our sales assosciates will explain everything to the best of their abilities. We never try to push some high end product on someone else just to make an extra buck, when people give us a price range we will show them a great and affordable Dynex TV instead of trying to push the latest and greatest Sony or Samsung LED lit display that will run them in the hole with a credit card.

The simple fact of the matter is technology scares some people and others just don't want to fool with it. It is worth it to some people out there to throw down $30, or in some cases even upwards of $200 to just "be done with it" and have everything on there when they pull it out of the box.

Sony should do something about this, Who even gave Best buy this dumb idea.

Customers should be smarter. But this is still wrong as hell.