False Advertising with Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle

As I mentioned, I purchased an Xbox 360 recently (a week ago tomorrow night, to be exact), and while I'm really enjoying the product, I must confess that it came with a bit of false advertising that has me shaking my head.

First and foremost is the free 1 month trial period of Xbox Live Gold. The Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle comes with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1, the latter advertising right on the case a free one month of Xbox Live Gold, stating on the case's back that there's a subscription card inside.

There is no card.

I'm also not the only one with this issue, as indicated by this thread at the official Xbox forums. Basically, it seems that Xbox Support is giving everyone the shaft (big surprise). This bundle package has been put together by Xbox Canada, and support is through Xbox (America), which, according to them, means they're not responsible for international issues. The only hope that people have been able to find is that apparently, the first three Xbox Live accounts created on a console will be offered a free one month trial of Xbox Live Gold.

I created my account online back just before the Xbox 360 was released over a year ago, and apparently, even though this online creation method is fully endorsed by Microsoft, you will _not_ be offered the Xbox Live Gold trial when you use this account on your Xbox 360.

In English, if you want a free one month trial of Xbox Live Gold, do not create your Xbox Live account via the web, do so through the console itself.

Please note that I have not tested this offer with a new account from the console myself, so it could be that customers are completely screwed. Since I'm only interested in a Gold account so I can download the Yavin Station content for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, it's not a great loss to me, however the rest of you have been warned.

The other bit of false advertising with the Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle is with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. It shows on the packaging both bundled games in their respective cases, however when you open up the box, you'll find that the DVD for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is in a simple paper CD sleeve and the manuals (English and French) are loose. Basically, Microsoft (or perhaps Ubisoft) screwed it's customers out of a game case, yet they included one for Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1.

According to the same forum thread above, Xbox Support is giving its customers the shaft on this as well, so basically if you want a case, the best way is to make it yourself. I'm trying to find a place where I can buy a replacement green DVD case, however in a pinch a basic black one will do.

One of the posters in the above thread also pointed out a great site where you can download and then print off high quality colour scans of case art, including Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. The site is called The Cover Project, and the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter case art can be downloaded here.

Overall, I'm greatly enjoying my Xbox 360 and will post about it soon, however it's sad little things like these that really make you wonder what a company is thinking. Sad. Very sad.