During my recent trip to Best Buy on Black Friday I came across a few things that were on sale (mostly music really), although I refused to get up at 4 AM to get on line, so instead strolled in leisurely at around 11 AM. There were still quite a number of people shopping and grabbing things up, but the Best Buy was far from over crowded and the video game section was similar to a normal day. What was interesting to me were all the consoles that littered the aisles, there were PS3’s (80 and 160 Gb with Uncharted bundles), Xbox 360’s (mostly Elites) and Wii’s a plenty (both with and without Wii Sports).
This is in stark contrast to past years where consoles were in high demand and finding one laying in an aisle was an act of god. I literally stood in an aisle as people rushed by stacks of Wiis without so much as looking at them. In the past a stack of Wiis like the one I saw would have incited a riot of epic proportions and quickly have been grabbed up in a matter of minutes. I laughed at the scene and when I told my wife her thought was that maybe the boxes were empty or just props, so I went over and started to shake boxes and the systems were inside. I literally I saw only one person purchase a Wii while I was in the store and at the registers and did not see many video games exchange hands.
Is this a sign of the times and the economy or has everyone purchased all the systems to their hearts desire already? Is the Wii finally not popular even to the casual gamer, is the Wii craze reached it’s end?
What do you think?
Podcast RSS Feed
7 Comments
Write a Comment»I wanted a Wii at one point but I realized that I would play it for a little and then never play it again. I think that people either a. don’t have the money or b. got over the craze as you said. I tend to think the latter though.
Let’s hope the Wii craze is over, then at least we can get back to games for real gamers by all the different companies as they would not feel the need to cater for the ‘casual’ audience.
I have a Wii (and 360/ps3) but it was a pressent, and all it plays is Wii Fit by my wife.
I actually work at BestBuy, and we had a stack just like that. I believe it was around 70 Wiis or so, but they were gone within less 4 days. And on black friday another stack of 70 or so was gone by about noon.
The picture is from Best Buy on BLack Friday at about 11 AM, consoles were everywhere. There were also stacks of PS3s and 360s.
With that many consoles sitting like that, i’m sure the deals are going to end up quite CRIMINAL…
aha horrible joke but can anyone name the movie?
Stacks of Consoles lying around with no protection? I’m surprised people didn’t rob run out of the store with it lol.
I feel the stacks of video gaming systems is two fold. The real fans of video games already have the systems from last year. These are the people who will stand in line on opening night or pre reserve their system months in advance.
The normal joes who may find it a nice to have but not a need to have dont have the cash to buy them.
At this point some people may wait for the next versions of these consoles.
It may also be that the console people created fake demand when they first released the consoles and now they are supersaturating the market.
The heat is gone for PS3, XBOX and Wii.
Especially Wii because they need to make better games!!!
How many of us dont have one collecting dust….