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Gaming | Online | O-T |
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for whom the Bell trolls
(10-04-2009,
12:00 AM)
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US Retail Musings for October: PS3 rises to heaven, PSPgo sinks to hell?
#1
It's about time we had another one of these topics. For the uninitiated, this is a thread for retail employees to share their anecdotal evidence on sales and their experiences on the retail end of the games industry. I recommend against posting any hard sales numbers that could get your fired.
Here is what I personally have witnessed working at a major electronics retailer: Systems PS3 - Selling like hotcakes. Slims are flying off the shelves in a manor I never thought the PS3 would achieve. A lot of excitement behind the PS3 now. PSPgo - Still early, but so far this thing has been a colossal failure. Since launch we sold one (1) PSPgo. That's three days of sales and only one unit sold. We sold 20 DSi's the day it launched, for comparison. 360 - Since the price drops we seem to be selling roughly the same number of 360s, but now a higher percentage of them are Elites. Wii - Consumer behavior seemingly unaffected by the price drop at this point. DS - Great, as always. Games Guitar Hero 5 - Absolutely stagnant sales. Numerous customer have expressed surprise that GH5 has been released. Beatles Rock Band - Big first day sales, but these $250 LE bundles and especially the $100 guitars aren't going anywhere. The $140 bundles are doing alright, in part because it's the only guitar+drum+game bundle we carry anymore. Need for Speed - sold a ton of copies because of the sale, previously interest was lukewarm GTPortable - best selling PSP game I've seen all year, no doubt ODST - excellent sales, not quite the Halo 3 frenzy, but still very good |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:07 AM)
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#7
PS3 - Hot, as the OP said.
PSPGo - We sold 9 on the opening 3 days. All 9 were from folks who had pre-oredered it. 360 - seems to be pretty much maintaining a steady pace but well back of the current PS3 and Wii sales. Wii - definitely picked up steam since the price drop. Things were pretty stagnant before the drop. DS/DSi - Also steady but not selling at the same rate they were earlier in the year. PSP3000 - Sold well in the Dissidia bundle but has dropped off since. ODST is doing gangbusters. Scribblenauts and Mario and Luigi are both frequently out of stock. Midnight launch for Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend confirmed due to pre-order numbers being high. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:08 AM)
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#8
Is anybody else just covered in Fight Night copies? Our store can't seem to give them away on either system.
PSPGo hasn't sold a single system yet. PS3 is selling well above what it was before the Slim came out. Still chugging along really well even three weeks out. 360s aren't selling any more than they did but they aren't selling any less, either. My store has seen a slightly renewed interest in the Wii after the price drop, I bet we've sold 15% more units per day. ODST has sold completely out, twice since launch. That is something like 450 copies in a week at just my store. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:08 AM)
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#9
Considering Sony has been very much "PSP Go --- What?!" in terms of the whole lack of marketing. I don't think they expected it to be a collosal seller. They probably see it as a stepping stone in that so-called ten year life cycle for the PSP, and to test the waters as to see what they can do with the complete followup to the PSP.
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:09 AM)
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#11
Originally Posted by a Master Ninja:
Both surprising and not. The Wii has the 'problem' of being the system that doesn't really need to drop the price to entice people to buy the system. I didn't ever think price was holding the Wii back from potential sales, but compelling software to push the platform, while the PS3/360 have the opposite problem of having software to push teh platform, but a high entry price which is hard to swallow given the economic climate. Or it could just be that the Wii was 250 for such a long time that any potential for a price cut to raise sales is gone, because of the lower entry price, and I'm an idiot. Who knows. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:10 AM)
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#12
Originally Posted by Takao:
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:11 AM)
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#13
Quote:
It should be interesting to see where this goes and especially after seeing the first day Japan numbers. I'm a little surprised on the Wii movement as I definitely have seen different. In the context of the 360 and PS3 sales are we talking the month of September here as measure or the last 3 days as of October? GO sounds about right.
Quote:
Sounds more in line with what I've seen.
Originally Posted by UraMallas:
Unreal. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:17 AM)
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#22
I expected as much for the PSPGo. The PSP already isn't exactly a monster sales wise, why would people suddenly start paying for a version of the machine that costs more and doesn't even have the umd drive. Digital Distribution can already be done with regular PSPs as well.
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:22 AM)
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#28
Originally Posted by Teddman:
I don't understand how they can finally figure it out with the slim design team and be so far off the mark on the Go's pricing. |
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for whom the Bell trolls
(10-04-2009,
12:23 AM)
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#31
Originally Posted by chubigans:
Originally Posted by matmanx1:
Originally Posted by Virro:
Originally Posted by UraMallas:
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make it rain, motherfucker
(10-04-2009,
12:24 AM)
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#33
Originally Posted by Teddman:
Kind of a shame, it's a kickass little piece of hardware. Everybody who's bought one seems pretty happy with the device. The truth seems to be more that Sony caved to retailer pressure because they need display space for the PS3 and hobbled the device with a high retailer margin price. By the same token, retailers seem highly resistant to it - there are no demo units, and outlets like Blockbuster don't even seem to be carrying it. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:25 AM)
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#35
Originally Posted by Virro:
Last edited by UraMallas : 10-04-2009 at 12:30 AM. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:28 AM)
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#37
Originally Posted by Teddman:
By what metric? How do you gauge something like that? Pure hardware sells alone do not and will not tell the full story. It will be impossible to judge how many people came in to see a Go and decided to buy a 3000 instead or just decided to buy a DD copy of new game "X" instead of the UMD copy. And on that same page, if Sony only sales 10k PSPGo's in a year in the US but manages to sale 3x as much PSP DD content as they did the year before then can that really be counted as a failure? And btw, the 10k number is completely arbitrary. I just pulled it out of the air. I have no predictions on the years sales for the Go. |
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Console Ultimate Warrior!
(10-04-2009,
12:30 AM)
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#38
Originally Posted by matmanx1:
SWEET! |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:32 AM)
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#41
Originally Posted by UraMallas:
Meijer dropped the price on those to $260 or something. Guess whoever you work for should do the same. Surprised to see PS3 keeping good sales. Not surprised at the PSPgo bomba. It's way too expensive. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:36 AM)
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#43
Warning: I'm not retail so I'll leave the real observations to those folks. :)
I can say from personal observation that retailer acceptance has been pretty uneven. The electronics retailers (Futureshop, Best Buy, etc.) seem to love it. Ads, store space, lots of PSN game cards. But EB/Gamestop (from a sample size of two stores) seems to have gone out of their way to hide the systems. Heck, they wouldn't even let me preorder it last month.  (This actually made buying one a more pleasant experience, but there you go.) Totally impressed by the system, though. Incidentally saw one mother drag her kids into an EB while I was shopping today, she knew what the go was and waved it off instantly. One look at her kids and I knew why; no way she wanted to spend more money on something she didn't think her kids would be responsible enough with. Heavily anecdotal, but evidence that the DS is always going to be more kid friendly.
Quote:
I'm surprised too. Almost as much as I am about the widespread sales push on Scribblenauts... |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:37 AM)
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#44
Some Dutch musings if that's okay.
PSPGo - We sold 3 so far, which is about 3 more than I was expecting. PS3 - Is selling really well after the price drop, probably best selling hardware right now. (Always sold better than 360 over here, though) Xbox 360 - Price drop hasn't changed much, except that we never sold Elites before now. Halo ODST doesn't sell hardware but that was to be expected. Wii - Pricedrop's done nothing so far, hardware still selling rather poorly considering. I don't think most people are even aware it dropped in price. Software sales are downright terrible apart from the Nintendo stuff. FIFA 10 is HUGE, and probably selling at a 2:1 ratio in favor of the PS3. |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:41 AM)
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#48
Originally Posted by matmanx1:
Come on, really? So what MS should do is release a $500 360 with no DVD drive to spur Elite sales? |
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Member
(10-04-2009,
12:42 AM)
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#49
PS3-selling good
Xbox 360-selling decent Wii-have one machine left, selling good DS/DSI-been sold out of these for a month PSP-never got the go and I have only ever seen one PSP unit actually sell (the stack of them in the cage never changes)wholesaler which is located near every other store under the sun so not many people but games or systems there. |
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Worships the porcelain goddess
(10-04-2009,
12:42 AM)
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#50
I guess I'll chime in from a small, military town Game Store.
PS3 - Selling well. Our shipments coming in are quite large now and we sell through them in about a week or two. 360 - Selling more Elites. Wii - Have not sold one console since the price drop. Weird. PSP Go - Got 10 in, sold all 10. 5 Pre-orders, rest walk ins. PSP Norm - No movement. DSi - Selling okay in this area. ------ Games: ODST sold well, but we're getting a ton back in towards Modern Warfare 2 already. People were not pleased. MW2 Pre-orders are disgusting and Goggles Edition is back for pre-order and selling nicely. I would say I'm surprised, but I'm never surprised at the shit people buy anymore. Uncharted 2 - Some pre-orders, not a ton. I keep pushing it though. Fuck you, I'm a fan. =P Brutal Legend - Nothing. Dragon Age - More pre-orders than Brutal Legend. I'm kind of surprised. GT PSP - Sold out of the 10 we got. Need for Speed Shift - Selling very well. Tekken 6 - Decent pre-order movement. DS Software - Prepare to choke yourself. Imagine stuff sells the most in my area. No contest. PSP Software - Sluggish outside of GT this week. Wii Software - Wii Sports Resort is about it. ----- Shooters rule this area, so it's not surprising MW2 is ruling it. Everything else is poor in comparison. |
