Rumor: Best Buy offering new PS3 buyers a free game

In order to dissuade recent PS3 buyers from returning their systems in exchange for newer, slimmer ones, Best Buy is reportedly offering a free game to customers who come in for such an exchange.

According to our tipster, who snapped the picture above (Kotaku also claims to have verified the story), Best Buy sent out an internal memo instructing employees to try to convince customers not to return their recent purchases for Slims with the offer of a free copy of either inFamous, Killzone 2, or MLB 09. The memo also states that there is no official "street date" for the system, so it could be out on the shelf already.

Is a free game sufficient salve for the burn of just missing out on a Slim? Or will irate customers with valid receipts ignore the offer entirely in pursuit of a less monolithic console? If you are in the position of having just bought a PS3, do let us know if this sends you scrambling back to Best Buy in search of some kind of better buy.

And if you're a high-level Sony executive, don't (try to) hide your immediate plans from your consumers. As it turns out, people like being informed about the things they're planning to buy. Nobody would have bought a PS3 in the last couple of weeks if we had known about the Slim, and there wouldn't be any emergency programs like this as a result of it.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/26/ru...-to-discourag/