Gearfuse

Best Buy’s Black Friday ad has leaked, which means it’s time to do some serious itinerary planning for the big day. See, I like me and my fiancee set up a full contingency plan based on what we want the most for us, then comes gifts for others. Come on, we need to set priorities people! Strategy is the name of the game on Black Friday.

So Best Buy has some moderately cool deals, especially in the video game department, but nothing mind-blowing. Though what might be notable is that Best Buy is not going to allow for anyone to get hurt this year because of their doorbuster deals. Apparently they don’t take “death by stampede” lightly. All doorbuster sales will be handled via tickets, which will be passed out up to two hours before the 5 am door openings. Hit the jump for a full-list of Black Friday Best Buy deals. Doorbusters are followed by an asterisk.

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In other words, go get one, and now, before it’s to late. If Twitter users are any kind of indication of Palm’s customer base, the Palm Pre is starting to sell out at stores nationwide. PANIC!

Because everyone knows, since the phone is selling so well, Palm will be sure to halt all production and restocking efforts so eager buyers will be disappointed and go buy the iPhone instead. Crafty Palm marketers!

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Another Monday, another rumor.

This time around, “sources” are saying that the upcoming Palm Pre, complete with WebOS and all, is going to be available June 7th at Best Buy. However, this will be a limited rollout, with only 4500 units being available. The carrier? Sprint. And if that wasn’t bad enough, look at these pricing numbers being thrown around:

Pricing is supposedly still being discussed but the probable points are as follows: New customers with a 2-year contract, $199.99. Existing customer upgrades, $299.99. Outright, $999.99.

Hah! Good luck, Palm! You’re going to need it as you undoubtedly fail against Apple through poor planning, mismanagement and fucking around with the worst cellphone provider out there.

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Gizmodo has a few pictures of the last day of Circuit City. Inside? Nothing but fixtures that were apparently sold to a local Best Buy store. I bet Best Buy employees get free cake today. Mmmm, cake.

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GameStop, with its icy grip on the retail video game industry, has a new competitor coming up the pipelines. No, Funcoland isn’t making a comeback but rather Best Buy is trying out a trial program that lets customers trade in used video games for store credit. As Brian Crecente of Kotaku points out, this is a fantastic time to be in the used video game industry. No kid or adult has $60 to plop down on a next-gen game nowadays, save for Killzone 2.

I think this is a great move for Best Buy. It’ll force GameStop to become more competitive and will lower prices on used titles even further. Let’s see how Best Buy plays this out…

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I don’t know how I should feel about this. I’m very scared and feel very confused. In a move that is very unlike them, Best Buy decided to open up its entire product catalog to developers via an API. Dubbed “Remix,” the API will allow developers to earn affiliate cash by using Best Buy’s images, information and, of course, online store.

This is really neat to an extent. Best Buy could be huge dicks about what you do with the API but if they’re smart, they’ll let someone create an iPhone app and then buy it off them or cut them some revenue from it. Now that’s the beauty of sharing data.

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Black Friday is only two days away and unless you started camping last night, don’t expect to scoop up any of those doorbuster items. Luckily, every hipster’s favorite computer company will be offering rare discounts on hardware and the like. Apple will offer deep discounts ranging from $100 to $250 on Macbooks, Macbook Pros, iMacs and other computers. The more expensive, the better the discount. It looks like our good friends Best Buy will also be offering the discounts, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near a place like that on Black Friday. Best of luck on your deal-hunting.

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Who would’ve thought that all of those AV nerds in high school would one day work on Best Buy’s Geek Squad. If geeks you know haven’t gotten a job on the squad then your next bet is to check your local Radio Shack. This holiday season, it’s not Radio Shack trying to steal your money with cheap RC cars and hearing aid batteries, it’s the Geek Squad with its gaming system set up service.

For the holiday season, Geek Squad will be offering a new service that will set up game consoles including the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360. Part of the set up includes installing parental restrictions, controls and even the Internet. Sometimes AV inputs and a power cord can be too much for some folks. Don’t worry, the Geek Squad is here to help. No mention of the price of the service if you purchased a system from Best Buy, however, the Geek Squad will charge you $30 bucks if you bought it elsewhere. It’s almost as much of a hoax as that Bluetooth set up service it offers.

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Target must be pissed. The company approaches the holidays with new gift cards that have a built-in 1.2-megapixel digital camera and what does its competitor, Best Buy, do? Best Buy tries a different route with gift cards that have speakers built in to them.

While not nearly as cool as Target’s concept, Best Buy has gotten this far by offering bullshit services like pairing your Bluetooth headset with your phone for $10 bucks. Being able to plug your gift card into your iPod right before you clear the $50 credit at the cash register seems pointless to me. Let’s see if Best Buy follows the way of Circuit City.

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The holiday season is upon us and pretty soon, Black Friday is going to roll around. Why not convince your loved one to go wait overnight in a line for a deal on an MSI Wind? The ultra-hackable netbook is now on sale at Best Buy for just $350 and the specs are updated quite nicely. You’ll score a whopping 120GB hard drive and a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, as well as WiFi and a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera. 1GB of RAM tops it off. The 3-cell battery kind of sucks, but you can easily buy a bigger, longer battery for about $100.

It’s awesome that you can walk into a Best Buy and purchase a netbook, finally. Too bad it’s Best Buy.

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