XBLA December Bonus Grants a 400 MSP Rebate

58
Richard Walker

Microsoft is continuing to give MS Points away this month, with its December Bonus offer, which gives you a 400 Point rebate when you purchase any two selected XBLA titles from a list of 1200 MSP priced games. So, essentially, you need to spend 2400 Microsoft Points for 400 back.

That seems a tad miserly to us, considering that one of the better rebate offers recently involved spending 2400 Points on anything for 800 MSP in return. And in the same month as the holiday season too... For shame! Still, you can't sniff at free Microsoft Points for simply investing in some of the Xbox Live Arcade's finest titles. Check out the list of eligible games participating in the offer:

  • Comic Jumper
  • Super Meat Boy
  • LIMBO
  • Plants vs. Zombies
  • Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
  • Castlevania Harmony of Despair
  • Hydro Thunder Hurricane
  • Monday Night Combat
  • Blacklight: Tango Down
  • Toy Soldiers
  • Trials HD
  • Shadow Complex
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 2
  • Battlefield 1943
  • Deathspank
  • Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 4
  • Costume Quest

The December Bonus runs until December 20th, and if you purchase two titles from the above list by that date, you'll qualify for 400 Microsoft Points, which will be credited to your account on or around January 17th, 2011 and the winning points must be used byJune 30th 2011. So, there you go. Now go buy stuff!

[Via Major Nelson. Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Comments
58
  • Is it just me that gets annoyed that we don't get rewarded for buying titles on release? It's almost pointless now day to buy day one products as they will almost certainly future in a deal or a discount somewhere down the line. Where's the incentive to buy first day?
  • december 20th! my birthday! the ad on the dash doesn't explain this very well.
  • feature*
  • free points are always good , but i totally agree with 1.
  • @1 I agree completely. I feel like it's better to wait a week and then buy the game. My friend bought NFS Hot Pursuit day one and my other friend wait until Black Friday just a few days after release and got it brand new for 25.00! I guess pre order incentives are supposed to be our reward but most of the time they suck.
  • @2 SAME :D it's my birthday aswell But yeh i have half these games already... where's my free points M$?
  • Hmm, I suppose a deal is a deal, even if there was a better once previously. Some decent titles here at least. Still need to pick up Limbo myself.
  • still havent got my 400 from october :/
  • SON OF A BITCH. I JUST bought Super Meat Boy and Limbo.
  • Plants Vs Zombies and Sonic 4. Was getting them anyway, so might as well pick em up in december and get some points with it
  • I hope this doesn't mean that none of those games will be reduced during the run up to christmas. I was really hoping to see some of those games, Limbo especially, reduced in the advent calender deals thing that they have done in the past. That way you would save 400 points just purchasing one game, much cheaper than this crappy deal
  • Nice list but most of these games I have. #1 is totally correct. There is no point to buying any game on xbox the first day. All pre-order incentives are eventually put on marketplace & arcade games are always in a deal not to far off from their release dates.
  • I hate how you have to spend $20 to get $5 back... That's stupid. It's like getting 2 games for $15... It really isn't worth it to do these deals unless you get 800+ MSP for purchase of two games. How does any of this make sense?
  • Scrooge is in town!!
  • But I have all these. :( Well between me and my little brother I have them, but I still have them! No points for me. :(
  • @1 When did you ever get 'rewarded' for buying on day 1? If you look at the retail game market, games have been devaluing with time for as long as I can remember. Why should XBLA be any different? The only 'reward' you get from a day 1 purchase (other than preorder incentives) is bragging rights over your friends who don't yet have the game. THat's it, and that's all there ever has been. As for this deal, I'll pass as it essentially means you're getting each game for 1000MSP, which doesn't seem all that great a saving to me. I can wait until they hit Deal of the Week for 800MSP.
  • Already have these games :( Maybe i should get the 400 points for buying so many? Also when you get the points why do you have to use them by a certain date thats not really fair is it? If i have points i use them when i like not by a deadline!!
  • Super Meat Boy rewarded you at first with a discount on it Also its gay how they pick the ones everyone already has
  • i brought Plants vs zombies new for 1200, and brought toy soldiers when it was reduced to 800. so i have essentialy already saved 400 points, what ca bad deal
  • I'm more than happy to wait for each of these titles to be 400 points lighter as a DotW than to only save 200 per title. Remember the Xmas savings on arcade games last year?
  • Avoid Blacklight, game wasnt worth it at all one of the worst arcade titles ive played. Might buy the Deathspank game and the lara croft one, but that depends on if i can get points.
  • "Avoid Blacklight, game wasnt worth it at all one of the worst arcade titles ive played." Well, then you obviously weren't very good at it. On my other profile I was regularly going 40 kills and 5 deaths.
  • Not interested really with this offer. Happy enough with the Reach DLC, the where-the-hell-did-that-come-from BF:BC2 Map Pack 7 DLC, plus Vietnam in a few weeks time. Plenty to keep me busy, along with a few XBLA titles i brought last month but my Degree has kept me from playing them as it is.
  • @1 Super Meat Boy makers were nice enough to charge us 800 on release. That is basically a 400 rebate for spending 1200.. There is your incentive, and it was a better deal..
  • @1 the incentive will come most likely with this new reward scheme
  • europe too?
  • @24 as much as that incentive was appreciate. as there's an average 3 releases a week 1 first day incentive even in a year would ratio it at 1/156. @25 with the reward scheme,as theres no definition when you buy the products.wouldnt you rather get them discounted and claim the same rewards?
  • Rubbish deal tbh. Anf they may do daily deals on XBLA like they did last year during Christmas - alot of them were half price so I definitely wouldn't bother with these deals.
  • *And* Damn typo.
  • I already have Comic Jumper (fucking amazing), Trials HD, and Battlefield 1943. I've been meaning to get Limbo and Super Meat Boy since they released. ESPECIALLY Super Meat Boy. I missed out on that month long discount for it too :(...oh well. Atleast now if I buy the two arcade games I want most, I'll get points refunded.
  • Already have Limbo, SMB, Sonic 4, Shadow Complex and Plants vs. Zombies. Only real interests here are Costume Quest, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Comic Jumper. We'll see if I am willing to spend $30 on them now so I can pretend I spent $25 on them later. Or if I'll just wait for discounts later on that are a much better deal. I like how they are trying to push Trials HD like crazy. Between the Black Friday deal and now putting it on this list, and the DLC came out.
  • man, can we just buy one and get 200 back? i would gladly buy Costume Quest otherwise, i'm keeping my points for BC2 Vietnam DLC
  • @22- Why do you immediately assume he didn't like the game because he sucks? No where did I see him mention anything about it being difficult. I could go positive easily on Blacklight when I tried the demo, but I thought it was shit. Too much gray, too much spawn killing and the matchmaking was atrocious! As for this deal, there is nothing here that I want for 1200 points. Will wait for them to go on sale, which they will. Eventually.
  • Payback is always nice, but i'll pass this time.
  • Ill pass on this one. Why dont MS do like the did last december and have 25 days of special deals?
  • @ 1 - That's totally up to the consumer. They shouldn't have to elbow and push at us to buy their product. They went through the effort of creating it and marketing it. That's their job. Ours is to buy it.
  • spend 30 and get 5 back? Wow and I thought the 30-10 was bad. MS sucks.
  • deal or no deals i'm still waiting for limbo to hit 800msp :D
  • there are only 4 games in that list that i don't have and i don't really want any of them which kinda sucks.
  • @ 5 I did the same thing with Fable 3. I preordered it but waited around for a couple of weeks before I bought it and on black friday it was $39 instead of the $59. So procrastination does payoff sometimes! :)
  • Agree with Number 1, Whats the point in day 1 with DLC & XBLA, I used to spend a ton on dlc etc but gonna wait till the bits i want are in deals like this from now on
  • There is a lot of games I am waiting to go on sale in here. And I am pretty sure they make this, because there is a lot of fools that will buy it just to get 400ms back. Then come December 21st and we will see some of them on DoTW for Christmas. I will wait till then:-P
  • @13 its actually $30 for 2 of these games
  • @1 im with you on this, i bought ALL the DLC for borderlands as and when it came out on the market place, and for what, a GOTY edition with an EXCLUSIVE beta access for Duke Nukem Forever! why the fuck are games developers rewarding those who DONT pay full price? why are rewarding those are not true fans of their games, the ones who HAD to be LURED in? in future im not bothering with DLC, just wait for a GOTY edition, i'll get more of reward for being a tight fisted un-loyal player, as opposed to being a loyal fan.
  • How generous of them. Not.
  • I already have Comic Jumper, Super Meat Boy, Limbo, Plants vs. Zombies, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Sonic 4, and Costume Quest. Nothing else here really interests me except for maybe Shadow Complex.
  • i always wait for the 1200 games to go on sale for 800. if 2 of these games are reduced in price (like most of them have been), you end up saving at least 800pts - twice as much as the 400pt rebate MS$ is offering with this offer. hell, Trials was just on sale for 400, so if you bought it during their Black Friday sale, you already saved double what this deal is offering! :P only games on this list that i want but don't already have are the ones that haven't been Deal of the Week yet (Comic Jumper, Limbo, Monday Night Combat, and the Deathspanks), so i'll just wait. :/
  • i have like 5 of these games already and dont plan on buying any of the others.
  • I will still wait for any of these games going DotW, giving me 400 and then demanding to spend them within the next six months is a crappy deal if you ask me.
  • Already got all the games but 5 on the list.
  • Bought Plants Vs. Zombies and Super Meatboy. SMB for my woman, and PvZ for me. ^.^
  • @1 It's basic economics, they are trying to make as much money as possible and split the markert. Those who are willinmg to pay the full amount and don't want to wait will buy it when it first goes on sale, then they drop the price a bit, or put on a deal and then the people who werent willign to pay top buck buy it. This is the same thing companies do with seats for trains or airplanes, just in reverse :D
  • Ah, a nice incentive to finally get Shadow Complex.
  • How unfortunate... of all the games on that list, there's only one I want that I don't already own. Woulda been nice if they had this offer a month earlier, but no big deal. It's only 400 points, nice to have, but no skin off my back.
  • Hmm...does it depend on what country you live in..I'm in Australia but I can't find Costume Quest on the dashboard when I go into the offer area. I was looking to get this game and now kinda seems a good time.
  • i'll participate only because there's two games on the list that i want.
  • I'd rather buy PvZ on disc with peggle and zuma for $20 (1600msp). Comic Jumper will probably be a DotW. Deathspanks too. Limbo for sure will be and probably soon. I just played the SMB demo and I want that game so bad. I don't know. I want some of these but the deal just isn't sweet enough to push me in yet. I'll probably fall into it for SMB though and just grab something else with it.
  • Still waiting on the previous rebate so I can get the Noble Map Pack.
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