PlayStation 3 posts

The Best Buy Black Friday ad has leaked out and offers price cuts on many items including appliances (sorry no $3 toasters) and other electronics like video games, HDTVs and laptops.

Most often, when searching for Black Friday deals, you don't think to look at major appliances. But this year Best Buy has 20-50% off many appliances, including a new Samsung washer and dryer set at half price. Other appliance discounts include refrigerators, Dyson vacuums and more.

Another Black Friday bargain at Best Buy is video games, specifically just released games and console bundles.

If you love to play video games but you haven't already purchased a Nintendo Wii then you better wait a few more days.

Nintendo announced today that its popular Nintendo Wii console will be $50 cheaper starting on Sunday.

The release also confirmed that when the latest Mario Bros game, "The New Super Mario Bros." comes out for the Wii in November that fans will get to play as the Mario Bros at the same time; a first for the series.

By dropping the Wii down to $199 Nintendo isn't just making it cheaper to get your motion sensing gaming on, it's matching the recent price drops to the Xbox 360 and the new slimmer Sony PlayStation 3.

Last month Microsoft cut the price of its top end Xbox 360, the Elite, to $299 which is even cheaper thanks to a $50 rebate which is valid until Oct. 6. The new PS3 slim which launched earlier this month is $299; a drop of $100.

This leaves the current prices of game consoles at:

• Nintendo Wii - $199
• Sony PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 3 Slim - $299
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite $249 after rebate
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade - $199

One thing to remember when buying a new console is that if you're buying for a Christmas present you may want to wait a few weeks until Holiday Bundles come out. In the past these bundles have included two games, albeit older ones, for the same price as the consoles.

The only console that you may want to buy sooner than that is the Xbox 360 since the bundled games, Pure and Lego Batman, can be purchased used for less than the $50 rebate.

Parents and gamers coming of age may be in for a break later this year, as it is rumored that both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 will have price cuts. Technology site Ars Technica claims that both Sony and Microsoft will drop their prices in order to better compete with the Nintendo Wii, later this year.

While there are always rumors about price drops in the video game market, Joystiq.com points out that the Mole at Ars Technica has a solid reputation in knowing what's going on in the industry.

On top of the Mole's past performance, history shows that it's time for another price drop, and a significant one at that. The Xbox 360 has already seen three price drops, which have given it an edge over the pricier PlayStation 3; but it hasn't yet reached the halfway price point that its predecessor, the Xbox, did by the fourth year of its release.

Given Microsoft's focus on digital downloads, I'd venture a guess that Microsoft will try to offer an Xbox 360 with hard drive for $199 -- half of what it cost when it launched in 2005. The Mole also predicts that Sony will be introducing a new, slimmer PlayStation 3, which will also cost less, although it's harder to estimate exactly how much less.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently released a study regarding the power usage of consoles. During the course of the study it found that gamers who leave their consoles powered on all the time spend more than $100 a year to leave their game console idle.

At first glance this appeared to be a damning study, especially if the NRDC defined "on" as a console left in standby mode; however the actual definition of "on" for this study was leaving the console completely up and running.

The cost of leaving your console on all the time varies, but no matter which console you choose, never turning it off is costly. Leaving your PS3 on all the time will cost between $130 and $160 depending on which version you have, compared to under $15 if it is turned off when it's not being played. Similarly the Xbox 360 costs between $100 and $140 if left on all the time but under $14 if turned off when you're done. The Wii is the most power efficient; only costing $10 if left on all the time, compared to $3 if turned off when it isn't in use. Leaving it on is still wasting $7, however.