http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15693
this is getting out of hand
It’s only going to get worse in Q4
no shit. I went in 9 stores recently to buy one, then gave up. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Okay, what? The fuck.
hm, I saw over 5 of them in a Target last night around 7pm.
That’s great, if you live in Massaschusetts.
- Alan
I guess, but also in Gary’s thread it seems a number of people are seeing these pop up.
I just saw a Wii commercial. Not advertising any game, just the system. They showed someone at a store buying the system and a voiceover announcing, “Wii got one.”
Ya. They’re really hurting to fix this high demand issue.
Man, imagine what will happen once there are good games for the Wii!
They won’t sell because the people who are waiting for the good games won’t have a Wii?
Ok, well I was half-joking, but in my joke scenario the people snapping up the Wii right now even without a stellar lineup wouldn’t avoid the good games. So the games would do fine, but the joke/point was Wiis would get even harder to find.
I was surprised that it was still so bad a month ago when I talked to someone who was still looking (I waited all night for mine back around January and have since forgotten the craze). I then told the friend excitedly that I saw some in the wild for the first time a few weeks ago at Best Buy and it was late evening so they had been there most of the day. They were gone a day or so later, so demand still seems to be there.
But in the last week I have seen them on shelves at 2 other Best Buys, a Target, and a Wal-Mart. Maybe the Halo demand has distracted people for a week, or the end is almost upon us. Probably the former, but there are definitly more out there now than there has been before.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a mild dip in sales this month for a bunch of reasons:
Going back to school would make me think that less consoles get bought (either because money is spent on school supplies, new clothes, or just not on a console with all that learnin’ to do).
We start to creep up on "We’re not buying that now, put it on your Christmahannahkwanzaa list.
With Madden, BioShock, and now Halo 3 it’s not insane to think that some console directed money shifted to other consoles.
Of course, you’d expect demand to climb back up to summer levels or higher as the big games finally arrive and Christmas rolls in. Throw in Nintendo’s apparent desire to keep production constant regardless of demand and you might see 7am lines and bracelets again this December.