Discounted Xbox-Kinect Bundle at Walmart?

Today, Joystiq reports a glimpse at an upcoming Walmart circular for the week of August 28 that advertises a discounted Xbox 360/Kinect bundle, coming in at the low-low price of $249.99, a $50 Rollback. Personally, I’d prefer to get a discounted Kinect (since I already have a damn Xbox). The console in the bundle is the 4gb “slim” Xbox 360, so this isn’t likely to get too many gamers excited. Still, not a bad entry price for some great hardware.

What’s interesting here is the fact that the PS3 has been discounted, and the Wii will be soon, but so far Microsoft has remained adamant about keeping their prices right where they are. As such, Joystiq looked into the matter by posing the question of the Walmart discount to Microsoft directly. Here’s the response:

“Walmart made an independent decision to implement this temporary price cut. We’ve made no announcements about price drops, and do not discuss our pricing plans in advance. Xbox is the number-one selling console in the U.S. for 13 of the past 14 months, and is showing record growth. With an incredible line-up of games and entertainment, we’re expecting the biggest year in Xbox history as the best-selling console worldwide.”

This situation, if it comes to fruition (and it looks pretty rock solid that it will) also echoes the big box retailer’s actions from a few weeks ago, when they cut the Nintendo 3DS’s price a few days early. This forced other retailers to do the same, thus causing a massive run on the system as gamers looked to cash in on the Ambassador’s Club’s 20 free games. Sadly, no such time-sensitive deal is in the offing for Xboxes, so this is likely just a case of Walmart looking to get some folks in the door by offering a pretty good deal.

What do you think? Will the Xbox 360 outsell the PS3 this year, now that Sony’s system has slashed its prices? My finally getting one of them is looking more tempting now than it’s ever been…

But as for the Kinect, I’m waiting for Steel Battalion to prove itself worthy before I get one. That game looks cool as shit.

Via Joystiq