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Even MORE Retail Reports!

by Max Lake - May 6, 2001, 9:49 pm EDT

We have one last batch of retail reports before E3! Find out what's up in Australia & the UK plus more! Lotsa great info!

A couple weeks back, Planet GAMECUBE was bombarded by reports from people who work in retail. It all started when a PGC reader called SillyMrMan mailed in some NGC pre-order posters. This story was followed by a report from Crazed Rabbit... Which was followed by a collective retail report compiled by many retailers and volunteer reader reporters. It turned out to be quite informative!

It's been awhile since we've posted another retail report but that does not mean that we stopped getting submissions. In fact, we got so many submissions that we almost didn't have time to edit them all. Almost. With E3 rapidly approaching, we've returned to bring you the latest batch of reports from retailers. We've even got some International flavor this time around!

First up, is our sole "non-anonymous" report and it comes from an old friend! None other than Justin Anderson! But wait, who's Justin Anderson?

If you've been with us since the pre-PGC days, you might remember Justin was

an Australian who contributed to both the 64 Source and Nintendojo. Not only a hard-core Nintendophile, Justin also works at a game shop where he keeps a sharp eye to what's going on in the interactive entertainment industry. As any Aussie will tell you, games are quite a different realm "down under" & Justin A's here to tell us all about it!

Justin Anderson says: Hey Max,

Justin here from Down Under! After reading your retailer report, I thought I would give you a bit of info on what's happening here in Australia.

(But first, how the hell have you been Max? I haven't heard from you in ages!! Hope you make it to E3 this year so you can keep me informed. Damn wish I could make it! D'oh!)

As Video Game Retailers, we are always talking to reps about their products and their competition. Our Sony rep, or any rep for that matter, has never attempted to restrict our trade by suggesting we remove marketing material of competing companies. Interestingly, though, Sony is only (and very) concerned with Microsoft's X-Box. No word of a PS2 price drop ever surfaces unless it is mentioned in the same sentence as the phrase "X-Box Launch"... and the X-Box isn't due to hit our shores until first quarter 2002 (oh, and the NGC probably won't hit our shores until March 2002 either).

With regard to customers, we consistently flash around our paper cutout of the CUBE and talk it up as much as possible. Unfortunately the PS2 is what most people seem to be interested in. Even though the PS2 garners the most interest, it isn't selling very well ($749 AUD) and the comments we get the most are along the lines of "I'll wait for the price to go down" or even "I am not impressed by the games at all!" The X-Box is not often mentioned among the average customer just yet (though the hard-core gamers obviously keep themselves well-informed).

Nintendo Aus have been actively talking up the GBA (at least to us) and look to sell through high numbers when it launches here in mid-June (at $179 AUD). We are expecting "interactive" units for customers to play in stores within the next few weeks. We expect that these will only heighten the interest that seems to be out there for the little Gameboy that could [rule the world hehehe]!

On a final note: Nintendo PLEASE get it right this time. The market place is rather stagnate and we need your innovative games to stimulate buyers! As it is right now, people are just looking for the quickest way to convert PS2, causing us to continue to walk down the piracy trail (which has been in no way helped by Sony, but that is another story).

Great to hear from you Justin! Keep in touch mate!

Next up, is another report from abroad, all the way from the United Kingdom. "Shigeru Fan" wrote in with a full run down on of their GBA / NGC pre-orders, competing next-gen systems and just gaming retail overall. Much obliged Shigeru Fan!

Shigeru Fan says: Hi, I am from the UK (Damn-it!) and I work in Woolworth's (similar to Babbage's but with home stuff).

Pre-Order Status:

Absolutely Nothing. That includes NGC, GBA and X-Box.

Sales Status:

N64: Same space as always. We were also told we would not be getting any new releases but we have just received five Banjo-Tooies and one (yes one!) Conker's BFD! We have received no hardware for the last six months.

DC: Quarter the space, double the stock! About four DCs since X-Mas: all sold.

PS1: Same space. About 10 new pieces of hardware a week but only one or two sold a week.

PS2: Have sold about 10 since launch, got about 30-40 in stock. I have only sold two games and one of them was an exchange!

Customer Opinions:

NGC: "What?", "I hope it has new Mario and Zelda games!", "I will buy one, can I reserve it?"

GBA: "Another Gameboy?", "Never heard of it!", "What's the difference?"

X-Box: "Horribly expensive and ugly!", "I will not get one.", "What, a new 3DO?"

-Shigeru Fan

Next up is Chris Lacey, a longtime reader and forum poster who wanted to let us know retailers weren't the only ones getting those cool posters.

Chris Lacey says:Hey Max,

Just wanted to let you know that the image posted about pre-orders for GAMECUBE was just a poster that was distributed at GDC. Well, actually it is two copies of the same poster: one side has pictures of the GBA and NGC games while the other side has the systems' information. I got the exact same poster and it's awesome. The "Coming Soon" bit was just something a retailer stuck on the poster themselves.

Chris Lacy, a Programmer

Thanks Chris! Next up, we have a scoop from someone I've decided to dub "Mr. Purple." Take it away, Mr. P!

Mr. Purple says: What's up Max? I am a manager at a very big videogame store; one in the GameStop Inc. retail chain.

In the past I have spread the word to the IGNCube boys (I told them that GAMECUBE would only be coming in the purple color) and would like to help PGC out. Why, PGC? Well I really like the site and think you guys represent the true Nintendo fans of the world... plus you update regularly which helps a lot. Anyway onto the FACTS:

GameStop as a company has officially stopped taking pre-orders on GBA. You can't pre-order them at our stores as we have been allocated a certain number of units for launch and already filled that shipment. I won't say how many but lets just say 500,000 stateside is not enough to go around. Just our store alone had 60 something pre-orders when we stopped taking reservations. By now that number would have easily reached into the hundreds had we kept taking them. At this point, the games are the only thing we can pre-order.

With regards to the poster for GAMECUBE, it is indeed a nationwide POP [Point Of Purchase] poster. But that's it from Nintendo: nothing else has come into the stores except that one poster. On the other hand, with the help of that one little poster we have obtained over 40 reservations. That's a good amount considering we only take $50 deposits.

As far as X-Box goes we as a company ARE NOT taking pre-orders. We have been told specifically not to advertise it in the store until further notice. X-Box POP material was taken down right before my eyes in my own store by the higher ups in the company. No bull.

There really isn't much else I can say. If you have any further questions on the retail side of things be sure to e-mail me. Remember: there are no stupid questions.

See Ya!

Word! Thanks for the scoop & the kind words "Mr. Purple!"

Next up is "don Julio" a Wal-Mart employee:

don Julio says:I work at a Wal-Mart in the Electronics/Home Entertainment department three days a week. We haven't had many questions about X-Box or GCN at all. In fact, we haven't seen our Nintendo rep in at least 6 months, so we weren't able to use the promotional Zelda MM or Pokémon Stadium 2 cartridges they sent us (the Nintendo reps have the key to the system).

Bad news for Sony though: the software for the PS2 just doesn't sell well at all. What's even worse is that we've had at a lot of systems returned for being defective. Including the five defective systems that I have personally seen returned, I'd estimate the total to be at least 10 from our store alone. At $300, it's really sad that the PS2 is turning out to be a lemon just like the PS1.

-don Julio

Keep in mind this was sent in a couple weeks ago. PGC staffer Colin Taibi reports that he's seen GBA display units at his Wal Mart and they are now taking GameCube pre-orders.

GBA display units should now be out at Target stores too by now, as "Dan" wrote us that his store was getting ready just after our last retail report ran:

Dan says:I work at a Target store. Today we received and put out our GBA pre-order slips. All Targets get their pre-order stuff on the same day so the GBA ones should be everywhere. The weird thing about them is that the date on the slips is June 13th... I thought it was being released on the 11th. Oh well, what is two more days?

Dan

Sorry this took so long to get up! Naturally, if you have any thing else to add write in! However, GBA display units & pre-orders should be everywhere now (Best Buy, Toys R Us, Wal-Mart) and GameCube pre-orders are probably just now getting promoted at these stores too. Although we've learned a lot from these retail reports, you can bet things will be much different after E3! After the great response we had with this series, we look forward to doing more "retail reports" after the show to see how much has changed.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in!

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