Snag an Xbox for US$99 — the catch? It’s on a two year contract

This is some beautiful forward thinking by the big-M. US customers can run down to a Microsoft store with coupon in hand, slap it down on the counter and say “Hey, you in the big boy pants! I want my US$99 Xbox 360!”.

Or you can quietly demand it. Either way will work. The coupon looks like this:

So what are the details lady-boys? Microsoft has started selling an Xbox 360 with a puny 4GB hard drive, Kinect and two years worth of Xbox Live Gold, which customers will have to fork out at the fair price of US$15 per month. As with every contract though, the user will end up paying a lot more than they reckoned.

Let’s do the math: US$15 times 24 months equals US$360. Plus the price of the US$99 console and you get US$460. Um, what? Amazon.com lists the same package (if brought outright) for under US$300. Comparative Xbox Live deals can be snapped up from as little as US$50.

What we have then is this: Spend US$350 outright, or tack on an extra US$100 and enjoy the Xbox for a period of two years. What uncle Microsoft is hoping to do is to engage users, draw them in with the low price-point and land an Xbox in every living room. At this point though, if users don’t own an Xbox 360, they might never what with new consoles just around the corner. Great effort though. Next time maybe, Microsoft? Hit up this link if you’re keen for the deal and you reside in the great ol’ country of America.