"Vinnk's Village" Anecdotal Report
Here is my Valentine to the sales-age gaffers. Sorry these reports are few and far between but with all the wedding prep. and various other projects I have a lot less time to do this. This report is numbers from Friday the 15th rather then the usual Thursday numbers. The reason for this is that Thursday was Valentines day and if I had spent the day going to game stores over seeing her, I can assure you I would be getting a LOT of free time in the future.
I was asked to look for numbers on Wii, Family Ski and Mario and Sonic DS. I was also asked to check the advertising and hype for Winning Eleven 2008 Wii. I visited the stores on Friday, February 15th, 2008.
Jusco
Wii: 2
Family Ski: 1
Mario and Sonic DS:3
Youme Town
Wii: 1
Family Ski: Sold out (or never ordered)
Mario and Sonic DS: 4
Mr. Max
Wii: Sold out
Family Ski: Sold out (or never ordered)
Mario and Sonic DS: 1
Book-Net
Wii: Sold out
Family Ski: Sold out (or never ordered)
Mario and Sonic DS: 2
Goody
Wii: 1
Family Ski: Sold out (or never ordered)
Mario and Sonic DS: Sold out
Best Denki
Wii: 3
Family Ski: 1
Mario and Sonic DS: 5
Wanpaku
Wii: 1
Family Ski: Sold out (but they did have some)
Mario and Sonic DS: 7
Famicom Dojo
Wii: 1
Family Ski: Sold out (they did have some)
Mario and Sonic DS: 1
Yamada Denki
Wii: 3
Family Ski: Sold out (or never ordered)
Mario and Sonic DS: 6
TOTALS:
Wii: 12
Family Ski: 2
Mario and Sonic DS: 29
NOTES:
1. Last week Wii was at the lowest level I have seen this year. This week it is even lower. Still it is far from sold out. Seems Nintendo is shipping them regularly. But yeah, there are no piles of Wii systems at any store.
2. DS is another story. There are tons of units everywhere. I have never seen so much supply. Every color of the rainbow.
3. PSP would be in a fairly close second. Stores have almost as many of them as DS. And they are starting to get much more prominent store positioning. Both Wanpaku and Book-net have moved the units to the front of the store.
4. Family Ski is kind of weird. I cant figure out if it is a super hot item or if stores just never bothered with it. Famicom Dojo ordered 1 and they sold it. I dont know how many Wanpaku ordered but they sold them. The other stores dont even seem to have placeholders for the game and since I dont have any friends working those places, I cant tell if they ever bought any to begin with. As it stands right now, there are 2 copies for sale in my city.
5. Used copies of DMC4 are now readily available. I expect sales to go down because of this. The remaining 2 360 DMC4 bundles were sold. But coincidentally 2 Used Blue Dragon bundles appeared at the same store. It would be funny if it was some big trade-in but more likely they have been in the back for a while and the store just moved them out in place of the other bundles.
6. There are posters up for WE Wii at 4 of the game shops and flyers at 2. There is a video display set-up at once store but the TV was turned off when I was there so I am not sure what video they are showing. I hope its the one that explains the gameplay mechanic. As for hype, the otaku gamers dont care. They dont really buy sports games. I asked a few guys I know who are into soccer games. 2 of them dont have the Wii systems so they are very happy with their PS2 version. The one guy I know why has a Wii told me he doesn't plan to buy the game again (he also has the PS2 version) and he says this one looks too complicated. Sorry I wasnt able to get a lot of data on this one. Still it seems Konami is trying to get the word out. Its not great advertising (like DMC4 or a Gundam game) but it is better than most 3rd party Wii efforts.
7. The local otaku are excited about the new PSP monster hunter. They are playing Tales of Destiny and a few bought that new Death Note game but one girl told me it wasnt very good.
8. Smash is now more readily available (though still not abundant) so the crying Pikachu picture was taken down. I wish I had gotten a better picture of it; it could have been my avatar.
Previous Reports:
January 10th 2008
December 6th, 2007
November 29th,2007
November 22nd, 2007
November 15th, 2007
October 15th, 2007
September 6th, 2007
August 30th, 2007
August 11th,2007
July 26th, 2007
July 19th, 2007
July 12th, 2007
July 5th, 2007
June 28th, 2007
June 21st, 2007
June 14th, 2007
June 7th, 2007
May 30th, 2007
May 24th, 2007
May 17th, 2007
May 10th, 2007