The Catch with the Circuit City Flyer - 3200 MS Points for $20

A Circuit City flyer popped up on gaming sites yesterday, apparently showing that 360 gamers had the chance to "save $20 on the purchase of two Xbox Live accessories $19.99 and up," as I found via 1UP.com today. Basically, this meant that if you got yourself two Xbox Live 1600 MS point cards at their respective $19.99 price, you'd actually pay for just one, bringing it to 3200 MS points for 20 bucks. The Internet blew up in flames as gamers and gaming sites tried to clarify this issue. Care to know what the deal was?

People first encountered the problem that cards were sold out at Circuit City stores. Then followed the never-ending phone calls, from people demanding a clarification. Circuit City decided not to answer the phone anymore, as they had a flyer saying something that wasn't entirely accurate. And for that, they apologized. Check out the picture on the left (click to enlarge) - you have the flyer above (which they've removed from CircuitCity.com of course) and you have Circuit City's sincere apologies below. Thanks 1UP.com for the pictures.

That's right, according to the upper mentioned gaming site, "a store in Livingston, New Jersey put up a sign saying the deal was only valid with the purchase of an Xbox 360 Elite." Now, excuse me if the synapses between my neurons feel the urge to make a little connection (heck, even my cat can make the connection here): do you honestly think that it was possible for Circuit City to simply forget to mention the $479 worth of gaming hardware?

It's true that everyone makes mistakes every once in a while (see Sony's sluggish start with their PS3), but how do you forget mentioning the Elite. It's not like those game expansions where the "catch" is that you have to own the original game. The MS Points are actually consolation for spending half your month's work on a gaming system...