I really dislike the bait and switch approach tech companies have been using to lure in the not so bright consumer who loves a bargain, but their plans seem to have worked well enough that they will continue as to grab your money how and when they can because you refuse to bring a calculator (or the part of your brain that works) to the store with you. According to this article on dealnews.com, the company may introduce a lower priced 4GB Xbox 360 this year that may retail for $99 (which ends up less than that on certain sites that run coupons or weekly specials in order to get you clicking and paying away). The catch is, that less than hundred bucks is a bad deal for a few reasons I’ll list below the jump…

1. Xbox Live: Like it or not, you’re not walking out of the store only spending $100 (or less). That 360 will require a contract for two years of Xbox Live (and probably the more expensive Gold account if you want to access all the services and content it offers). Sure, you can probably make do with a regular account, but good luck getting out of that contract if you decide you hate it for any decent reason. That and if you don’t have broadband in your home, you’re not going to walk out of that store with a 360 at all, as it’s the sole way to get any of those Xbox Live services you’ll be tempted with.

2. STORAGE SPACE: Even if you DO have a super online connection at home, if you even think that 4GB is enough to hold more than a few games, game saves and other content, you’re fooling yourself. It’s actually a “better” deal to spend more on a 360 with a much larger HDD and an Live account so you can download and stream away without worrying about needing to delete stuff you just bought a few days ago. Hell, as installed content, many full GAMES are close to (or over) 4GB (minus options and save files), so you can imagine how someone who snapped up a budget system will feel when they suddenly need to boogie on back to the store to get a larger drive…

3. No Blu-Ray Player: Granted, Netflix is a great source for films, but it’s not the BEST one in terms of library size. Sure, Microsoft wants to basically be your ONLY entertainment hub, but sometimes you want to watch something offline that’s NOT logged by the console or available online, be it a Hollywood classic or something more… er, mature. Yes, you can play your DVD collection with no trouble on that 360, but if you’ve made the move to Blu-Ray, you’ll need a separate player, a PlayStation 3 or Microsoft’s upcoming new Xbox (which will ship with a BR player as standard issue from what I’m hearing).

4. Food! Yeah, you can (and SHOULD) buy some food instead of being rooked into a console sold like a damn cell phone. Only YOU should own your hobby, not some corporation passing off a business model and service package as a “deal”, I say. Of course, those who have the cash to throw away will buy into anything that looks cheap, but if you do some math and proper research into what you’re about to commit to, you’ll come out the winner in the end.

Yeah, this has been a public service announcement… “Shop Smart… Shop S-Mart!”