May
30
Cell Phone Retailers Say the Use of Applications has Increased since Last Year
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40 stores were consulted across the nation including Verizon, AT&T wireless, Radio Shack and Alltel. Our researchers asked whether applications could be downloaded into their cell phones and all 40 or 100% of those polled responded yes. We asked which were the best applications available and the following applications were cited as best: ESPN MVP, Maps (including Google Maps, Sprint Navigation and VZ Navigation), music, ring tones, Java and Windows Mobile. We asked our researchers what percentage of people download these applications and 18 respondents or 45% of those polled said less than 50%. 22 respondents or 55% of those interviewed said higher than 50%. The average for this question was 24%, our survey found. Interestingly, we asked whether downloads were increasing, decreasing or were about the same as this time last year. Five respondents or 13% said the use of applications was about the same as a year ago, while 35 respondents or 87% said application downloads were definitely increasing.
May
6
The Channel Checkers has been tracking the sentiment of game store employees on their enthusiasm for GTA IV, the new game released by Take Two Interactive last week. Our most recent survey covered from April 21 to April 28. We found that approximately 62% of respondents to our survey believed that GTA IV would be the next big game in May. While that number was positive in general it was well below the 80-90% response rates we saw fro Halo 3 in the fall of 2007. We believe that GTA IV will underperform the expectations since it is clear that the game needs to be as big a hit as Halo 3 if not bigger.
We believe that sentiment surveys like ours are very predictive of game success in the video sector. The opinions of those working at the video retail outlets is powerful especially when aggregated in significant numbers and surveyed consistently.
We wonder if Electronic Arts might abandon its bid for Take Two once it becomes clear that GTA IV is not as powerful a franchise as many had hoped.