Bargain or anti-bargain: is the traditional BB bonus DVD worth a couple of $ extra?
 

I haven’t been roped in on any of these yet, but they seem to be so omnipresent these days that I wonder if I am really missing something.

What do you think?

Depends on the disc, depends on the price. Depends on the price other places are charging.

For instance, Best Buy had bonus discs with each of the Star Trek: Original Series sets (All Star Trek Series sets I believe), but the "sale" prices at BB were horrible. Buying these elsewhere would have cost between $20 and $30 less than buying at Best Buy. Those discs are certainly not worth that much to me.

However, Fry's Electronics had a much better price for these sets. 3 price matches later and I had the entire series and the bonus discs for the Fry's sale price. Still a little more than buying them online, but only a couple bucks each. Beyond that, these sets had a high rate of scratched discs due to how they were packaged. Buying them at a local store would make exchanges easier.

Some bonus discs are really good, like the unaired original pilot for South Park that BB had with Season 2. Another price match (With Target) got me the best price and the disc, but that disc would have been worth an extra price regardless.

Many of the discs are crap. I think Minority Report, T3, and Matrix Revolutions came with pretty worthless CD-ROMS. But they had the cheapest price on those, so what the hey.

The bottom line is that a bonus is a bonus, and if you can get it for a good price to boot, that makes it all the better.

The Top Gun DVD SE was worth it for me (I'm a super fan). BB had it for 14.99 while Kmart had it for 12.99. I price checked it and got the bonus in it (it's usually packaged, right??). I'm gonna see if Troy is worth it.

I'll be price matching Fry's single day sale price of Troy for $13.99 at BB to get the bonus disc.

And, since BBY price-matching policies vary hour by hour and from employee to employee, your best bet is to pay their rip-off price and then come back a week later and price-match at the customer service counter where you can be sure to get the 10% difference as well and where they are unlikely to bullshit you about how their edition has the special disc and the other store did not.

The content is usually nothing special, but for the price and exclusivity, they're pretty cool. The Dunk Contest disc that came with the 20th Anniversary Ultimate Jordan set was awesome though.

Let me just say that the Anchorman bonus disc is quite enjoyable and has a number of outtakes and deleted scenes that aren't on either the main DVD or Wake Up Ron Burgundy. But yeah most are just "eh"...like Minority Report, Spidey 2, Dawn of the Dead, etc.

Unfortunately BBY seems to have come up with the "exclusive bonus DVD" as their official strategy to try to get more sales, and I suppose as long as they'll pricematch there is no reason not to buy at BBY for the lowest price to get the bonus DVD if the store is nearby. However, I am bothered that sometimes they have very limited quantities which forces me to go at opening on Tuesday morning because if I come back after work at night then they may be all gone. Since I'm supposed to be at work at 9 and BBY doesn't open until 10, BBY makes things difficult for me.

I've always wondered whether Circuit City or other stores will start using this scheme so that nobody would ever know where to buy if each store had a different bonus DVD. I think the only time that happened was on Die Another Day.

I guess BBY must be the only store with enough clout to get studios to make these bonus DVDs (Walmart could do it but doesn't). To me every time studios release a bonus DVD like this for BBY -- especially for a 2-DVD set whose DVDs are not full to the brim, it's a tantamount admission that the studio held back material they should've included on the general release because they wanted to give BBY an exclusive edge. To me it's a form of market manipulation by BBY.

It would be interesting to find out how much BBY has to pay to get this special treatment. Most of their bonus DVDs are pretty worthless, but occasionally they sell for more than the DVD itself on eBay and that makes them worthwhile -- but it's unpredictable.

You don't need to come back another day for the PM. Just buy the DVD at their price, leave the DVD in your car and take the receipt and the competitor's ad straight to the CS desk, and do the PM. Usually the receipt does not indicate if the DVD has a bonus disc or not, unless the bonus disc is separate from the DVD and has its own UPC.

Btw, the $13.99 Troy at Frys is good on 1/4, so you can't just come back another day to PM.

Regarding if the bonus disc is worth an extra buck or two. It depends. The Top Gun bonus disc seems to be highly sought after (probably because of the content as well as the limited quantity). It has been fetching a pretty high price on ebay.

I still say kudos to Best Buy for providing a little something extra for their customers. I do understand it's a pain in the ass with the limited quantities, rude and unhelpful employees, and the sometimes slightly higher sale prices, (which can be offset by pricematching), but no other chain is offering any extra incentive. And based on the the last two bonus discs, Anchorman and Top Gun, the content appears to be of commendable quality and that's a good sign for future releases. Also, it does strike interest for dvd collectors.

Costco actually had a couple of releases with a bonus disc packed inside the box. The punisher is the only one that I can recall off of the top of my head.

Problem is: it's not just Best Buy. They're pushing the idea harder than any other store, but there have been plenty of exclusives elsewhere, including competing exclusives, such as the different bonus content at Walmart & Kmart for Beauty & the Beast... It's not a horrible thing, but it could easily become one.

Depending on the bonus disc, the secondary market can be lucrative. I made over $500 selling my DS9 bonus discs on ebay. Almost paid for the entire set.