There is currently a popular story doing the rounds about how Epic Games think that Microsoft is winning the online battle due to their added content. In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Epic's Mike Capps says that it's due to Microsoft's policy of adding of constantly "adding cool stuff". That's all good and well but it's the next part of the interview that got my interest. More after the jump. He goes on to say the that: "But I love the fact that you boot through the dashboard now - I understand how some gamers might not like it so much, but that's how you join into the Xbox Live experience - your dashboard comes up, you get to see what's new, hey, there's some free stuff you didn't know about - instead of just booting into your game and missing the community." It never ceases to amaze me how people can so easily soften words to try and make something hugely profitable look like it is something that has been done as a favour to us, the gamers. He speaks about missing the community and seeing that there is free stuff available, when in truth, it's actually just all about pushing as much money-making DLC down our throats as possible. This reminds me of the famous quote, "out of sight, out of mind".

I saw an interesting news story showing that the popular American retailer "Circuit City" is going to be offering 1600 free Xbox Live points to anyone who buys Gears of War 2 from one of their stores. Ok, I though, this doesn't really apply to us South Africans so I don't need to bother posting the news. Then it dawned on me, this is very relevant to us because I want to know why we aren't getting cool deals like this. As a South African, any of us have quite a large amount of stores to choose from when buying a new game for our favorite console or handheld. Some go to certain stores for a better price, or because they like the service and most, well, most probably just pick whichever is closest. So with gaming picking up in the country and the potential for sales being huge this Christmas season, why in the hell aren't any of them using any methods to get us to buy from them instead of their rivals. Damn it. I want 1600 free points when I go buy my Gears of War 2, or a free keyring, or pat on the back, or something. I'm sure that you do too. Most of us have our favorite stores but if there is one that is offering something like this along with the game then you know damn straight that it will be there store that I go to when the game gets released. C'mon local stores, when are you going to realise that we all want free stuff and you all want more sales, it makes sense doesn't it?