Play-Asia begins its holiday push

The holiday season is upon us and Play-Asia has begun its yearly ritual to reward existing customers and entice in new ones. All existing customers or newsletter subscribers have received a coupon via email and the site now displays its yearly Season Recommendations.

The coupons, while not as generous as they were in previous years, still provide a substantial discount. Two codes are provided in mass emails, with one offering $8 off a $50 order and the other offering $12 off of a $100 order. The coupons are transferable, but can only be used once and cannot be applied to an order with the promotion of the week found on the front page. They are also only good until December 31, 2007. The mass email is only sent out once, so new newsletter subscribers or customers will either have to wait until next year for theirs or find a friend who isn’t using their coupons.

The seasonal gift list provides a smattering of potential gifts across all of the major store categories. The best and most appealing games, toys, movies, and music are listed on one page to help entice people who might be indecisive about a gift for a certain someone. There are no set descriptions, it is mainly a small paragraph for each section with links to a few items in that section in each one. It isn’t terribly helpful, but it does act as a brief reference tool. T

he items recommended tend to be painfully obvious. When it comes to video games, the guide recommends Super Mario Galaxy, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, The Eye of Judgment, Shin Sangoku Musou 5, Halo 3, Assassin’s Creed, Contra 4, Jump Ultimate Stars, Silent Hill Origins, Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus, Crysis and Call of Duty 4. It seems a bit odd that an import specialist only recommends so few Japanese games. Their recommendations for figures, toys, and music are even more vague and rather than specifically referring to items just mention the kinds of items available.

The gift guide isn’t particularly helpful when it comes down to it, but there still is a good way to find gift suggestions at the site. Look at the particular system or item page, and then focus on the top 50 sellers. While their suggestion page offers some nice ideas and does reference some of these hot titles and items, it seems to be more general and hypes up games that can be found in local stores.

Site [Play-Asia]