Best Buy Allocations for Halo 3 and Defect Rate Posted by HSDEMONZ | September 25 02:34 EST | News Category: Xbox360

I stood in line for an hour tonight like many of you around North America waiting patiently to get my hand on a Retail copy of Halo 3. Best Buy Toronto (downsview) location was the place to be, with 1000 of each Game SKU available and 400 of the Halo 3 Xbox Console sku. With less than 250 people in line, people can reasonably expect to get consoles and games when they wake up Tuesday morning here in Toronto. The Manager said BB Canada was allocated 15000 units per SKU across it's 27 Canadian Stores. With 1000 of each allocated to just the Downsview location, you can do some math and figure out what the rest of the Canadian shops are getting. :) We had people show up around 1:30am after being in line at Walmart and FutureShop who did get a game, but didn't score much in the way of freebies. Best Buy had more than enough Free T-Shirts, Wall Graphics and Camo Headsets for all that wanted one. Shocking though, was the number of Collector's Tin found to contain defective/scratched disks. when I left, the manager on hand for the event reported a 1/3 defect rate for the tin can collector's edition. Fortunately, BB was awesome, and allowed everyone the time to open their games, (regardless of edition) to determine if an on the spot swap was necessary. The Legendary "Helmet" edition had a few people pissed off, but that was more in the area of 1/20 defective. Kudos to Best Buy for the good service. The best bet for a guaranteed game experience was the basic no-frills edition. Reportedly, some of the big losers tonight appear to be those who went to EBGames stores, and either found no midnight launches, or did and found not enough was available to meet even pre-order allocations. Keep in mind this is a reflection of the Canadian market, and specifically the Toronto area. Tested my copy, it works and I'm a happy camper. No Pre-Order BS for me. :) See you Recruits on LIVE! BTW, the guide they are offering, has alot of helpful info without spoiling the ending!

I hope everyone is enjoying the new beastie.. Catch you on LIVE later.

i wonder whats been happening with the legendary's
i jus got one, but im not going to open it, so i hope the helmet inside is ok
at my local gamestop they only had enough to cover preorders and not a single copy more
but nobody opened it thier, otherwise they prob would have been SOL

Get in my timezone damnit!
Or call my boss and say i need two weeks paid holiday and not deduct it from my leave. .

-Keel

Heh heh, I got it 14 hours before most of you americans cos we're ahead in time.

My eyes are in pain. My mates and i started the co-op on heroic this morning at 1:15, but 7am, we had finished easily. It was too easy and pretty short. If you're gonna do co-op with 4 ppl, go legendary, heroic was just a walk in the park.

I have maybe 5 mins sleep this morning and an hour this arvo. Its 5:14pm here now. Need....sleep....

But the game is pretty good. While every1 thinks its the best game they've ever seen, i think its good, but not the best thing ever. Maybe im just too tired.

Have fun everyone

I work at Fry's Electronics so I am gunna go in tomorrow before the store opens grab a few legendary's and walk out and show em to the line

I just came back from 2 local Wal-Marts here, went thru 5 of the Collector's Edition sets (3 at one store and the last 2 at the other) and not a one of them had either of the 2 discs secured and all had some or a good bit of scratches on them. Stood right there in the store and opened them up as well, crap if I was running back and forth for all that mess and now Wal-Mart, least the 2 here, have a clue about what's going on since they had none at all about it when I asked if they had any returns. I pre-ordered the thing a month ago as well, and was banking on that thing showing up all fugged up so I wanted a backup 'just in case', and now I can just about guarantee it is as well.

0 for 5 is ridiculous there Microsoft, ya really need to get yer shit together. Two small pieces of foam for inserts between the top of the discs and the case would have solved the whole mess, pretty sure ya have access or know where to get a whole big boat load of that stuff. Looks like I'll have to 'finish the search' for a good disc before I'll be able to finish the fight, thanks.

Before anyone cries either here's some facts, A. I don't want the standard edition, if I did I would have bought it. B. I don't really care if the thing plays just fine with whatever scratches are on it, I paid for a new 2 disc set, and unless it's proven that they made them that way at the factory, then they're not new and are damaged, end of story. If the things are gonna get scratched up they're gonna be my scratches, that I paid for, I'm not paying for someone else to screw up my stuff.

My Legendary Edition was in perfect condition, when I saw the IGN unboxing video I knew the Limited Edition was going to be a problem and that was a small deciding factors to me getting the Legendary instead. I can't wait to start playing again, I actually like sleep

On a side note, why would anyone buy this and not open it? Seems like a waste to me, what's the fun of looking at a box. I know some people are collectors but this isn't really going to be worth anything, it's not that limited. I think my Bioshock LE or MGS3 LE will be worth more than this thing, they're a lot rarer.

I went with a friend last night.. we opened 8 before we found one acceptable..

the disks weren't just out of their placements...

they were scratched up big time...

Oh.. I forgot to mention...

this was Cleveland OHIO...

I bought a copy of Halo Legendary Edition last night and it had a used condom inside.

I kept it.

my best buy had about 25 Legendary preorders behind the counter, and close to 30 Legendary units on the floor, when I got there an hour after opening today. Dayton, Ohio store. maybe 15-18 H3 consoles.

I got mine without a hitch, now I'm back at work and can't play until tonight. I would have taken the day off, but I am on a deadline.

I have a standard edition preordered at my local best buy. It is my understanding that they are holding it for me and I haven't gone to pick it up yet. Will go after work.



None of them will be worth anything, and not much is rare with the invention that is Ebay. It is more bragging rights and for collectors I feel.

Heh, I was just checking eBay and the cat-sized Helmet Editions are going for less than retail. All the ones with reserve above $129 have zero bids on them. Some crazy Buy-It-Nows are priced at $350 or even a couple at $500! I'd guess quite a few of the Legendary pre-orders were bought specifically to unload on eBay.

Even funnier are the asstunnels trying to sell off just the helmet alone.

best buy dundas and bay toronto had about 300 copies left at 1130 when i bought mine they also gave me a free headset free wall graphics and a free halo 3 tshirt. yay:) though im still stuck in class till 1pm

I'm glad they aren't selling for astronomical prices, I hope the people who tried to rip people off like that can't return them and end up losing money just to unload them in the end, serves them right. It's just one of the bad parts about ebay, it screws the people who actually want the game out of a chance of getting something they would actually enjoy for a retail price and makes them pay way too much for it. That's why I preordered both the Limited and Legendary so I could get the one I wanted when they finally came out.

Another reason why I would never preorder!