Ridiculous Xbox One Deal Arrives at Sam’s Club

Reasons for having not purchased Microsoft’s Xbox One entertainment console are slowly evaporating, especially for budget minded users. After weeks of an Xbox One price cut, warehouse reseller Sam’s Club has announced an Xbox One deal for the ages. As of right now, the Xbox One at Sam’s Club starts at a mere $299.

Members of the /r/XboxOne Community on Reddit noticed the Xbox One deal at Sam’s Club’s website this week. It’s the first time the Xbox One has been available at a price this low. For comparison, Microsoft originally sold the Xbox One at $499. That price did include a Kinect 2 sensor, but didn’t include any free games or extras.

The console included in this Xbox One deal is the plain Xbox One bundle that Microsoft debuted last June. As such, it doesn’t come with the Kinect 2 sensor. Included with the console is a power cable, a HDMI cable, a wireless controller, a wired Xbox One chat headset and a single pair of batteries to use with that wireless controller. This past winter Microsoft made the Kinect 2 sensor available at stores on its own for $150.

Sam’s Club is a warehouse retail store that rewards users with deep discounts in exchange for a yearly membership fee. It’s very similar to BJ’s and Costco. It’s because of this that users need a valid Sam’s Club subscription before they can take advantage of this Xbox One deal. Memberships to Sam’s Club start at $45 a year and go up to $100 a year depending on whether user’s wasn’t deep discounts on eye-glasses and access to Sam’s Club stores earlier than regular members. Samsung plans to discontinue this Xbox One deal on May 2nd.

Microsoft hasn’t declared the $50 price cut on the Xbox One permanent, nor said when they plan for it to end. Last night the company did announce that a decent line-up of games and the price cut helped it nearly double sales in February when compared to January. Those sales still weren’t enough to earn Microsoft higher sales than Sony’s PS4 though. Nintendo’s 3DS mobile consoles topped sales of all other hardware entirely.

Normally, the Xbox One without Kinect sensor costs $399, but Microsoft temporarily lowered the price of all of its Xbox one bundles by $50 early this year. Those who take advantage of this Xbox One deal and already have a Sam’s Club membership are saving roughly $50. Those who don’t have a Sam’s Club membership are mostly breaking even – but it’s hard not to imagine additional savings from buying other things with that membership won’t save buyers any extra. Year-long Xbox Live memberships sell for $56 at Sam’s Club, for example. Normally, a year of Xbox Live costs $60.

Anyone considering taking advantage of this Xbox One deal should move very quickly. A check in our area showed just one actual Sam’s Club retail location stocking this console. The rest showed were completely out of stock. What’s more, it’s very unlikely that Sam’s Club will offer this Xbox One deal again since it appears the company is offering it as a way to unload the first batch of Xbox One’s that didn’t come with a Kinect 2 sensor and didn’t include any free games.

The site now shows another Xbox One bundle without the Kinect 2 sensor. It includes everything that the one included in this Xbox One bundle does, but also has two free games, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Unity, and Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. It’s still selling for $349. This week Microsoft also introduced the Master Chief Collection Xbox One Bundle at its stores. It too costs $349.