Comcast Makes Wii Give Away Promotion Official

Then it's not a FREE Wii. I mean, the question is, what exactly is the deposit? If it's to pay for the first 2 months of service, then that's one thing. If it's a security deposit, then the Wii is definitely not 'free', and should not be advertised as such. My guess is that it's a 3rd party offering the Wii, and it's not really 'free' at all.

And if you have the $250 for the deposit, just go buy your own wii.

That's exactly what I was thinking. A Wii is $249, so technically it's cheaper to just buy one in the store.

I live in the Chicago suburbs and heard the radio ad for the free Wii this morning. The disclaimer at the end of the ad stated for new residential customers who sign a 24 month contract. Promotional rate ends after 12 months and normal service fees apply after. So it sounds to me like you are going to pay a hell of a lot more over the months 13-24 than the Wii is worth. There was no mention of credit checks from what I heard.

It's there way to make sure you just don't up and cancel on them or fail to pay your bill. Since I believe comcast doesn't lock people in with contracts.

NO WII FOR YOU!

Redemption Form is mailed 2-3 days after the completed install.

If on day 5 you don't have your form in hand you need to call!

Keep copies and follow the instructions to a T or 3 months from now there will be a thread full of people complaining about not receiving the WII.

Return Options:
1. »www.comcast.com/agreement Subscriber will need to enter Agreement ID and PIN number found on the redemption letter or enter their account number.
(PIN is the first 5 letters of the accountholders last name).

2. FAX NUMBER: 770-963-6679

3. MAIL TO: Comcast Redemption Services
P.O. Box 49180
Lawrenceville, GA. 30049-6679

DON'T FORGET THE FORM!

Good way to screw someone after 12 months. Take the Wii now, then later when the 13th month bill arrives, you are ticked at how much it went up, except you're stuck for another year.

Suckers!

That is the point of the deposit. To prevent people from signing up; getting the Wii; and then immediately canceling. The credit check is to see if they will be able to pay for the Preferred service.

You're better off shelling out $249 at a game store than jump through hoops to get a Wii..

But don't you have to jump through hoops just to find a Wii.

Nope. They are in the stores here.

and you don't need a deposit for it.

What a ripoff. Just like all their promotions.

You might...as far as I am aware, Comcast and all the other cable companies will run a credit check on you before installing any of their equipment in your house. I suppose the theory is that people with better credit are more likely to return everything intact.

Since HBO and Showtime are generally not available on analog service anymore, you may end up needing to pay a deposit to qualify for those offers too.

Wait... there's a new Jumping Through Hoops game for the Wii? Does it use both of the controllers or just the one? Multiplayer?

The company with the worst picture quality (SD or HD) is giving away the one current-gen console that can't output HD. Maybe it's so Comcast users never get to see a HD picture on something other than cable to compare their crappy cable picture quality to.

Or maybe Comcast sees a kindred spirit in Nintendo.

Comcast:
crappy channel lineup
crappy picture quality
just plain incompetent
laughably expensive

Nintendo (Wii):
crappy game library
last generation graphics
incompetent at seeing trends emerging (storage, online gaming)
moderately inexpensive

Well, 3 out of four matches aren't bad...

I'm trying to figure out what exactly is wrong here. When I've signed up for cable in the past, they almost never offered promotional rates for as long as a year. IIRC, the promo on my HSI that Cox gave me in Phoenix ran out after a mere 3 months.

Comcast has been offering 12 month promotional rates on their triple play for some time now. So unless you're one of those people who thinks they deserve to have an eternal promotional rate, I'm having a hard time seeing the problem.

I suppose you could object to the two year contract. That is something that's new to cable. But no-one's forcing your hand there either. At least here in Denver (which according to Karl is one of the places offering the Wii—I haven't seen or heard any ads yet), Comcast is still pushing the same old 12 month triple play promo with no contract whatsoever.

You must be a PS3 or Xbox fan boy!!

Got to say I own all 3 consoles (xbox, ps3, wii) and I have found graphics not to be such a high priority on the list. I find myself playing the Wii more often than my PS3 or Xbox now. For myself the repeat cycle of shooters they have with no real earth shattering changes or the sports games that just seem to be the same thing over and over with just better graphics has lost its appeal to me. Now that is just my opinion and what I feel. Everyone is going to be different on what they want.

Dismissing a console that btw is hard to find still in lots of markets because it is not leading edge graphics and what you call limited game selection is just an opinion just as what I stated above. Apparently if it is selling as many units as it has just means they appeal to a much wider market than the "I got to have the latest graphics" market. They hit several things that Sony and Microsoft didn't. They appeal to parents, they are priced more reasonably, they are appealing to much wider range of ages and biggest of all they added a new twist to the market with how you control some games now.

BTW they do have online gaming. It is just not Nintendo supplying the theater for where it needs to be done.

Can't wait to see how some of the tone may change on online gaming if ISP's go to bandwidth usage pricing. By no means am I a fan of Comcast either but for now they fill my need and should someone else come along that can do the same or better for cheaper, less privacy invasion, stick with net neutrality, and keep the outages down I am going to have to stay with them.

This reminds me of those Free PC offers back in the 90's. You got a free pc system if you agreed to subscribe to some dial up company for 2-4 years. Total rip off and they probably did hook a bunch of uneducated poor people.

intendo not seeing online gaming? C'mon, WFC is cool and free Plus, they came out with the whole "wave the controller around" thing and the iPhone followed. Storage...yeah, you're limited to a 2GB SD card. But the game library's good enough for me. Then again I don't play FPS

This deal is not a ripoff...you don't have to do it. Not sure why everyone is so angry. It's just a different kind of offer. It won't appeal to everyone, but there are some people that will want it. Most customers stick around for 24 months or more anyhow. There have been other Comcast promos with contracts as well. There have also been other Nintendo giveaways as well. I'm sure that there's other news in the industry that is more important to bicker about

It's part of the new Comcast exclusive Wii "fit" package.

Games include:

Jumping through hoops.

Flying off the handle (at customer service).

Tactical fainting (When you get your 13th bill).

Granny's hammer smash.

Among others..

And why is the Wii the only next-gen console making a profit out of the three?

Library isn't that bad but there are several cutesy type games I don't like seeing on it (Sims 3?? MySims? wtf)

wow a wii, i rather have free installation and first month free, thats like 250

Microsoft's Entertainment division recently posted it's first profit (not nearly enough to make up for the prior years of losses though), so now we have two out of three profitable consoles, though Nintendo's is still the most consistently profitable and probably making more money.

I already have a Wii, and no free one will make me sign a 24 month agreement w/ Comcrap LOL. I paid my bill over the weekend on the phone service, they have no record of the payment but it came out of my bank this morning. The fun we are in for now with them!!

I need to find those games for my Wii.

Hey Comcrap, here's an idea: Fix Comcast of NJ II/Union system crappy HD lineup first! A pathetic 25 HD channels whereas today Fios made it official 100 in the NYC metro area??? Are you kidding me? yeah, right, I'll sign for 2 years with Comcrap....

the deposit is also like the $50 EMTA deposit, at the end of a set timeframe you do recieve the money back. I need to read up on it but it may be with interest same as with $50 EMTA deposit.

Yes, the PS3 is my favorite but...

I am far from any kind of fanboy. I've been a hardcore gamer since the xmas that I got my Atari 2600 and owned a majority of the consoles since...certainly every console since the NES (ok, no virtual boy). PS3, XBOX 360 and Wii all are hooked up to various TVs around the house and the only dormant system ATM is the 360 =P

I'm proud to say I'm 38 on Thursday and still play videogames almost every day.

I'll give you the crappy library is an opinion, but so is its sister crappy channel lineup. If you want to watch shopping or religious programs all day, then Comcast is certainly the best bet.

However, Wii's last-gen graphics is a fact. I agree, it's not all about the graphics in games but better graphics is better graphics. Wanna pay $60 to play Bio Shock on Wii?

Interesting side note:

I refuse to play the Wii because I hate the controller. I didn't even play Zelda and I was a HUGE Zelda fan back in the day.