Another retail report has come in, covering many of the same issues touched on by SillyMrMan. Now, we have a new contributor from a rival-retailer writing in and since it's pretty informative, we have no problem passing the information along to you. Today, we hear from someone dubbing himself "The Crazed Rabbit."

The Crazed Rabbit says:I also work at a videogame store (Im not going to say it directly, because I could get in trouble for it, but lets just say its a competitor to the store that SillyMrMan works for), and I just wanted to share my thoughts about it. First of all, we have had that EXACT poster in our store for at least 5 or 6 months. We just haven't put it out... at the insistence of Nintendo, I believe. Right now it is in the back, unused. We have had a little Xbox display out, though (it is rather slick). Sony has not even "threatened" to hold back shipments, so it is no big deal about that. We have never had a problem with Sony doing this.

Besides, all that talk of Sony doing stuff like that (breaking displays?) seems hideously illegal to me. I have never had a problem with ANY rep - sure, they may be somewhat misinformed, but they were usually good to us. Nintendo reps are usually nice, as are Sega, Sierra, anyone else. The talk of Sony doing all that stuff seems kind of ridiculous, to me, as I have had first-hand experience with them and they never said stuff like that.

Secondly, that $399.99 price was, I think, not set by Microsoft, but, rather, GameStop itself. Retailers will set a price in their system before they get official word for one simple reason: if they have a SKU they can start taking preorders. Retailers will aim high before they aim low, only so that people don't get upset. In any case, I would have to say that nobody should think, not even for a second, that this will end up being the actual price based on the info they had.

In any case, we have NOT begun taking preorders for the Game Boy Advance, thanks mostly to the shortage that will be going on. Xbox and GameCube, same thing, although different reasons. I would have to say that the Xbox has been a bit more popular among the customers in the store. I would say that more people have asked about Microsoft's system then Nintendo's, for whatever reason. Maybe it is because we have seen real games for the Xbox and we haven't for GameCube (most demos for system unveilings are realtime, so those Zelda/Luigi/whatever demos still didn't blow me away because MOST demos are realtime and look more impressive then the system's actual games, at least for the majority of its lifetime).

Just wanted to give a second opinion on all of this! Thank you for listening.

In the same vein as using nicknames;

CrazedRabbit

Thanks CrazedRabbit! I know I'm probably asking for it, but any other retailers wanna compare notes? Get in touch!