Walmart has released its Black Friday 2012 deals circular and we have picked out the best of the home entertainment bunch below. They have also announced a guarantee directed at the scores of complaints retailers receive year-over-year when doorbuster deals are gobbled up by the first few people in line.
The Walmart Black Friday 2012 event commences even earlier this year with doors opening up at 8pm on Thanksgiving night, November 22. Those of you like myself who thought Black Friday starting at midnight was absurd, the madness is on its way to kicking off before Thanksgiving dinner at this rate.
Here’s how the Walmart Black Friday guarantee works. You must be inside a Walmart store and in the queue line between 10pm and 11pm and want to purchase one of the following: an Apple iPad 2 16GB with Wi-Fi ($399 plus a $75 Walmart Gift Card), an Emerson 32″ 720p LCD TV ($148), or a LG Blu-ray player ($38). If the item or items you want are sold out before you get a chance to make the purchase, Walmart will issue a Guarantee Card entitling you to the product at the doorbuster price when the product is shipped to the store prior to Christmas.
The only catch in Walmart’s deal is you have to have paid for the item *in full* by midnight, and you must then immediately register the purchase online. There is of course a 1-per-customer limit on each item. I can only imagine how long the lines will be for $300 iPad 2’s with the $75 gift card.
Some Walmart Black Friday 2012 gaming deals that jump out include a 4GB Xbox 360 Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure bundle for $149 (cleaning out old stock obviously), a PS3 console bundle with Infamous and Uncharted for $199, a Walmart exclusive Skylanders Giants glow in the dark Sonic Boom Series 2 figure for $9.96, a basic Wii console for $89, DSi XL Nintendo handhelds for $99.96, and lots of games in the $10, $15, and $25 price points. Nothing Wii U appears in the circular.
Walmart.com will be running its own early Black Friday 2012 deals online all day throughout Thanksgiving day. One of those deals is a Samsung 50″ LED HDTV for $698. You can view the Walmart Black Friday 2012 circular here.
Amazon.com has been running Black Friday deals since just after Halloween. Expect Amazon to have many of the same deals as Walmart, Best Buy and Target on Black Friday, and expect them to sell through very fast.