Unfortunately for my bank balance we haven’t seen any of the $2,000 eBay prices that people were paying for Xbox 360s in the US (I’m kidding of course; I wouldn’t sell it for that little), as they seem to have peaked on launch day at £700-800 and now settled around the not quite so ludicrous mark of £500-600. The usual round of idiots who are duped by not reading the description into paying $600 for the a home-made box continues to amuse me, though.

Anyway, I’m going to break my current state of 360-addled bliss with an amusing anecdote of desperation. From time spent both at work and in the Video Game Centre I’ve seen just how annoyingly constant the stream of calls and other enquiries about it are (annoyingly so, in case you were wondering), but this is the first time I’ve seen it turned on them into such a handsome profit.

Eynon, the owner of the VGC, hadn’t planned to get one, but when the opportunity arose thanks to a new contact at the local Virgin Megastore, who were going to have a few Cores left over and games available at staff discount, he jumped to it. We played his machine all evening on launch night (he got it early when the whole centre containing Virgin was unexpectedly closed down), and then when he wasn’t too bothered he decided to leave it in the shop for the time being so that it could be an in-store demo and also something to sell if someone made a good offer. In all it was on for a couple of work days and was played by at least ten different people that I know of.

Fast forward to today. Someone came in and saw it, asking if it was for sale. Eynon told them that it was his and he didn’t want to sell it (lies), but that he would for the right price. The guy then actually offered £500 for a Core pack that had been used by loads of people as an in-store demo and bought it. Seriously, if you were going to pay far over the odds for one wouldn’t you at least go on eBay where they’re a similar price unused?