Question about pre-order bonuses

[Invictus ChiKen]

I've noticed a lot of games if you pre-order them you get codes for special units or characters.

Are these ever released sometime after the game has been sold. Say internet download or XBox live?

[Stark]

Depends; some of them eventually become paid/free items, but on PC they generally never become available but you can just patch it in anyway.

Do you want your A-12 Avenger in HAWX?

[Invictus ChiKen]

Do you want your A-12 Avenger in HAWX?

Naaa I was looking at 360 games I missed out on mostly as I'll have to order after the specials have run out.

Especally as being newly employed a 360 is more of a late in the year purchase.

[CaptHawkeye]

Pre order bonuses usually end up forgotten in my experience. Most of the time. Occasionally you can get the pre order bonus by reaching some point/rank in the game or some such. Other times you really just never see it again, since the developer is already pre occupied with other things.

Speaking of HAWX, I just read the aircraft list for that game and it now has my interest. I was worried it was going to be 100% super airplanes from the future but seeing things like the F-4 Phantom, MiG 21, and even the freaking Corsair 2 is a great way to tempt me.

[Stark]

Dude it's got three types of fucking Tiger. Jaguar but no Typhoon!

Things like maps etc generally become available to everyone, but little things like unique cars/planes/etc quite often don't. You won't miss out on anything actually useful they could possibly charge for.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Okay thanks guys!

[CaptHawkeye]

I mean i'm just blown away. The Corsair 2 and some of the other planes on the list are primarily gun armed jet fighters that were hold overs from the Pre-Vietnam days of machine gun equipped jets. It'll be really cool if they take those characteristics into account with the game's "pilot sense" and such. They're even going to have the EA-6B Prowler. If they find a way to make ECM work in an arcade flyer i'll be sold. Ace Combat will finally have some real competition.

I've also noticed most of the "lawl pre order bonus items" are little more than cosmetic or some such. Like GoW 2's "Golden Hammerburst". So you really don't miss much not getting them. Far Cry 2 supposedly had "3 hours" of extra gameplay content for those who pre-ordered, but I don't think anyone was going to miss another 3 hours of assassination/buddy having a bad day missions.

[Zablorg]

If you pre-ordered UT3 you got a new character!

Of course you could just use a console command in the regular game to access them, so yeah.

[DPDarkPrimus]

A lot of "pre-order bonuses" are just content locked behind a code which is the same for every copy of the game, and is therefore easy as cake to obtain from the Internet after release.

[Jade Falcon]

The Saints Row 2 ones were quite funny. It was a universal code, so going to Xboxachievements or a similiar forum unlocked the UFO, Gyrocopter and the mini bike.