As always, these scams oops sorry promotions, are only ever in London. How about they look elsewhere on the map. The sooner the Thames Estuary rises a few fet and wipes this blot on the landscape out the better!!!

Right... so Sony giving away TV's at the PS3 launch is good but Toshiba & Warner giving away HD DVD players with the Matrix HD DVD is desperate.

so, you go to a store to buy a disc in the hope of winning a player. Either you have a player for the disc, in which case you don't need the competition. Or you don't have a player, in which case you've a very real chance of shelling out for a disc you can't play.

Worst. Contest. Ever.

How many people will just leave the queue when they realise they're too late for a free player?

Or: how many people will turn up in hopes of getting a HD-DVD player for a very low price, but have no real interest in the Matrix trilogy (since they already own it on DVD)?

If I can get time off work (and the wife lets me), I'll be there early, but no free player, no deal.

That if you are buying the matrix trilogy on HD-DVD, the chances are good that you already actually own a HD-DVD player. Wouldn't this offer have made more sense on the dvd/blu-ray versions to try and convert people who aren't already using HD-DVD?

So if you buy the HD-DVD Matrix, yet don't make the cut to get the player, then what the hell do you do with it?

List price is $100, so it'll probably be £100, i wouldnt pay that without having a player first, and couldn't afford both as i'd rather spend that kind of money on a PS3.

it only outputs upto 1080i ?

they might as well give away a free vhs player its just about as redundant tech

Great get in a huge cue to get the losing format for next gen! Nice :o)

Not that I'm bias but I'll stick to my PS3!

.... join the queue.

That's exactly what I thought. It makes no sense!

Sony didn't pre-announce that they were giving away the tvs IIRC - otherwise i'd have been there to get one. or if they did, it was announced after there were already 100 people queued up outside the store so it made no difference

Why, oh why would anybody SANE want the a Matrix Trilogy boxet? There is only one Matrix film -"The Matrix", so why have 3 copies of it - or does the boxset come with a DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray version all in one box?

To explain:

As far as anybody sane goes, there is only one Matrix film and those films that are touted as "sequels" either do not exist or have nothing to do with the first film. The reasoning is simple: "The Matrix" was such a good film yet the films that are the supposed "sequels" are such absolute and utter shite that the only possibility is that world class morons wrote and directed the sequels and really talented people wrote and directed "The Matrix". While this is a very fair conclusion, it's thrown into disarray by the observation that, allegedly, the Writers and Directors of the "sequels" are the same as that of the first film... This kind of blip in reality is difficult to explain so it's easier all round to assume that the "sequels" do not, in fact, exist. We'll just put them down to some glitch in the program and look around nervously for men called "Smith"

Am I the only one who expects that everyone in queue will get the player? Speaking as someone who thought the first movie was amazing, and the second and third were complete shit, I would guess there can't be THAT many people who actually

A) Liked all three movies

B) Are willing to admit they liked all three movies

and

C) Are willing to shell out hard-earned cash for something they already own on DVD

You'd have to hand out a free player to make me sit through episodes 2 & 3 again!

"So if you buy the HD-DVD Matrix, yet don't make the cut to get the player, then what the hell do you do with it?"

Sell it on Ebay. You never know. You might make a profit.

To answer the question how many people will simply leave when they realise they are so far down the queue they have no chance of getting one, the answer is probably surprisingly few.

The day after Thanks Giving in the US used to be the grand daddy of all sales. Big ticket electronics in particular were discounted sometimes over 50%. Just about every store participated in early morning madness, typically the sales started 5am and finished around noon.

Nowadays the story is very different, the retail chains in particular have seriously cut back on the deals, offering piss poor discounts that anyone could get as Christmas creeps closer and shops get more desperate. However the point is that people still remember the good ol' days and despite the small print stating that only, say, 20 people will get the 1/2 price gameboy or they only have 4 of the $300 (shite) laptops - the huge queues still appear year after year.

Even when the 400 person queue finds out that only the first few are going to get the deals, for some reason everyone stays (hoping that the 396 people in front of them will change their minds or give up I suppose).

Maybe we are a bit more practical about things like this, but I doubt it. If it's something we want badly enough, we can still queue up 2 days ahead of whatever sale/console launch is going on just as well as anyone else. So my guess is this is going to work, and when people end up pissed off, more than half of them will still buy the HD DVD set, and probably shell out the cash for the player aswell.

..just get a refund ? :P

i liked the sequels, ppl are just being pathetic when they say they are a travesty etc.

were they as ground breaking as the first ? no

were they as good ? no

but that doesn't make em less entertaining than an old man's fart caught on tape

they were great films, great action scenes and enjoyable films

Andy, get a life. First of all, it's "people", not "ppl". Don't be such a lazy pile of shit that you can't type the extra three letters. Second, realize that when people say the sequels sucked, they're stating their opinions. By you're logic, you're just being pathetic when you say they are good (since "pathetic" in your world obviously means "you disagree with my opinion"). Finally, perhaps *you* are entertained by "an old man's fart caught on tape", but I have a feeling most of us here like our entertainment with at least a touch more intelligence. Now go back and finish watching "America's Funniest Home Videos" with the rest of the good little sheeple.

ITs a bloody swizz, its Gordon bloody Brown trying to get more money out of me.

ooooooo the lazy get!

If it were a Dual player I might get a bit interested. Until Dual players or Dual Discs come out im not interested in either technology! I'll stick to DVD's for now thanks Tosh.

Hello

I was very happy to be the first in the queue for this promotion spending about 24 hours of my life waiting outside HMV in Oxford street was a small price to pay for a free £250 DVD player. This promotion was run very professionally by the HMV staff I turn up way to early at 10.30 am the next person in the queue arrived about 4.00 pm with about 25 more by 8.00 pm and the last of the 150 turning up at about 4.00 am monday morning. Once the last person the 150 any late comers were turned away so no one had to queue up and not get a dvd player.

My toshiba HD dvd player will be on ebay with the Matrix HD dvd box set from thursday I would like to keep it but need the cash.

I hope more companies do more of this kind of promotion see you there next time at the front of the queue !

Cheers

Philip