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Spying on the Circuit City liquidation sale

At the risk of beating a dead horse, we dropped by our local Circuit City store this weekend to see if the oft-derided liquidation sales had picked up any stream. Hopefully, a couple of weeks into the CC death spiral, the discounts would ratchet up and we'd finally see some good deals.

Dan Ackerman
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Dan Ackerman
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A view from the inside the Circuit City store in NYC's Union Square.
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Laptops get 10-percent off, but we only saw a handful of models on display.
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A fixed-configuration retail version of HP's Mini 1000 Netbook. At $404.99 it's actually a little less expensive than HP or Amazon, which sell the same model for $449.99.
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Video games get a mere 10-percent off, and many older games still have their original $59.99 price tags.
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"No" seems to be the operative word here.
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Let's compare -- Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is $55.99, after a 20-percent discount.
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Yet, right next door at the Virgin Megastore (and at Best Buy), it's $39.99.
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Let's try again: Wireless Rock Band drums for the Nintendo Wii -- $71.99 after a 20-percent discount.
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But at Virgin (and other stores) it's still $89.99, so score one for Circuit City.
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Since iPods are generally never discounted, 10-percent off iPods and other digital music players is actually not a bad deal.
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Looking for a DTV converter box? They've got plenty.
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If you can't enough free video game hints online, strategy guides are 30-percent off.
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Plenty of music games still in stock.
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PC games also get a paltry 10-percent discount. Please, line up in an orderly fashion for your copies of Lord of the Rings Online.
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We would have stocked up on cheap flash drives, but 10-percent off the already high prices didn't seem like a particularly good deal.
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Hey, 30-percent off Monster Cables? More tempting, but still too expensive.
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Game accessories have a decent discount, but there are only so many rubber Wiimote skins anyone needs.
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On a Sunday afternoon, the store was fairly crowded. At least none of these people are being asked to buy an extended warranty.
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A final reminder -- thanks for shopping and don't come back.

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