• Search the Site
• 
  

• Categories

  • Apple (14)
  • Cell Phones (10)
  • Financial (4)
  • General Site News (2)
  • MP3 Players (11)
  • Networking (2)
  • PC's (2)
  • Renewable Energy Stuff (1)
  • Retail (11)
  • Satellite Radio (2)
  • Search (1)
  • Uncategorized (4)
  • Video Games (11)
  • WiMax (3)

• Archives

  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • March 2007
  • January 2007
  • November 2006
  • October 2006

• Subscribe

  Entries RSS
  Comments RSS

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.

Nintendo of America, the maker of the insanely popular Nintendo Wii consoles, says the inventory of the game is improving and a good thing too for fans. The Channel Checkers surveyed 32 electronics, game and console stores across the nation this week and asked whether the Nintendo Wiis were in stock, if not, how long before more arrived? The stores included GameStop, EB Games, Blockbuster Video, Toys R Us and Best Buy. Thirteen or 41% of respondents claimed that the Nintendo Wii was not in stock, while 19 or 59% said they stocked the console. Of those who said they did not stock Nintendo Wii, 16 or 50% said they would have the console within one week, 9 respondents or 28% said it would be two weeks and 7 or 22% said it would be four or more weeks before they would stock the product.

Our most recent research of video games and consoles at retailers (59% were Gamestop locations), showed that the Nintendo Wii had reclaimed the honors as top video game console at 48% of stores that responded (up from 36% in our previous survey). The Xbox 360 was only cited as top seller by 28% of stores, a large change our last survey’s findings of 43%. The Sony Playstation 3 dropped to top seller at only 10% of stores, down from 21% in early March and 16% in February. The newly released Mario Super Smash Brothers Brawl (played on the Wii console) was the top selling game at 30% of responding stores. Call of Duty IV was seen as tops by 14% of respondents, while the previously top seller Halo 3 and Army of Two were each only named as tops by 10% of respondents. Grand Theft Auto remains the most highly anticipated game for launch in the next three months, according to 52% of respondents (up from 29% earlier in the month). The recently launched Mario Super Smash Brothers Brawl had been named as the most anticipated game by 29% of respondents just weeks before its launch earlier this month.

The Nintendo Wii continues to be scarce in the US. Following up on a survey done in January, we polled Best Buy, EB Games, Gamestop, Target and Walmart in the US and Canada in February. Of these stores, 68% did not have the Wii in stock. The average wait was almost 2 ½ weeks to obtain the game console. The one store which had a significantly higher percentage of Wii’s in stock was EB Games. At that store a customer had a 50% chance of finding one in stock.

We have just concluded an early video game survey of game stores in the U.S. The Nintendo Wii was seen as the top console by over 50% of our respondents. This high response rate is impressive given the widespread shortages of Wii’s this Christmas. The Xbox from Microsoft was reported as being the top selling console by 31% of respondents and 10% saw the Sony PS3 as the top seller.  Our survey bodes well for sales of Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox consoles given that Sony reported this morning that it had sold 1.2 million PS3’s from late November through December.  We would expect unit sales to be 3x for Microsoft and 5x for Nintendo in the same period.  Time will tell how predictive our survey is.

The top game was Guitar Hero III from Activision which was rated as the top selling game by 28% of our respondents. 21% of respondents viewed Halo 3 as the top game despite the widespread problem of scratched discs for Halo 3.  15% of respondents saw Mario Brothers Galaxy as the top game while 10% each viewed Call to Duty 4 and Guitar Hero III competitor Rock Band as the top games.

Halo 3 is seen as the best game for the Xbox console specifically by 41% of respondents. 12% see Call to Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3 as the best games for this console platform.  The most anticipated new game according to our survey is Super Smash Brothers for the Wii.  21% of respondents cited this game as the most anticipated while no other title garnered meaningful support.

One negative from our survey is we believe that Assasin’s Creed and The Orange Box have not been as successful as hoped as our respondents rarely cite either game in any of our response categories despite substantial hype about the games before their releases.

In our just completed video game survey for October we find that the Halo 3 effect remains in full force.  80% of stores we called told us that Halo 3 was the best selling video game. Guitar Hero III from Activision was recommended by 6% of respondents which placed the game as the number two game for this month.
On the console front, the race for number one remains fierce. Last month saw for the first time in our survey Xbox consoles be cited as the top seller by a majority of retailers breaking the grip of the Wii.   Our new October results show the Wii has inched back into the lead by a small margin (48% versus 47% for Xbox).  The Wii’s performance is impressive as we also conducted an auxiliary survey of video game retailers and found that over half were sold out of Wii’s and would need 1-4 weeks to get new supplies.  It appears the Wii will be hurt by shortages again this year, which will likely result in our master video game surveys continuing to show Wii and Xbox as a very close 1-2 in console sales.   PS3 in our most recent survey was cited by only 2% of respondents as the best selling console.  This marks the lowest recording for PS3 ever in our surveys.

For upcoming games we found that  Call of Duty 4 is the most often cited “next top game over the next six months” with 20% of respondents followed by Grand Theft Auto 4 with about 12% of respondents.  The Mario Brothers series, which consists of several titles that we group together was third with about 8 of respondents calling those games the best ones coming our in the next six months.

We believe that video game and console market share information will be of great interest as the Christmas shopping season approaches and we will begin our November survey soon to continue to bring you the most relevant field data on this topic on the web.

We have recently concluded our monthly video game survey looking for the top selling games, best selling consoles and most anticipated new games.

In this version of our survey product we found that Halo 3 remains the most anticipated game according to 27% of our respondents. In August 20% cited Madeen 08 as the top upcoming game release, although several noted that at this time of year the latest Madden iteration is usually a top seller.  Only4% of respondent felt that Grad Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) was the most anticipated game. GTA IV has fallen in our surveys all summer from near parity with Halo 3 to barely registering among respondents.

We found that 39% of our respondents listed the Microsoft Xbox 360 as the top selling game console compared to 37% who saw the Wii as the top console. The Nintendo DS received top billing from 9% of respondents so that as a complex Nintendo continues to lead in total console preferences among our survey respondents.

The top game, in a nod to seasonality noted above was Madden 08 according to 29% of our respondents, the most responses of any game in our survey. The second best selling game was Halo  3, available on pre-order.  The next top game that is shipping today is Bio Shock from Take Two Interactive. We see the buzz for Bio Shock but just 7% of respondents reported that title as the best selling game in the month. Guitar Hero fell in our survey as only 4% of respondents cited it as a top selling game now.

We are now beginning our September /October period survey on the video game space and will be back to update you all soon.

We have recently completed a survey of video game stores (32) asking about the availability of the Nintendo Wii. 22 stores were out of the Wii while 10 reported they had the Wii in stock. The average wait for new Wii to be in the stores we called was 2 1/2 weeks with roughly 1/3 (11 out of 32) reporting that it would be 4 weeks or more before they had the Nintendo Wii game console in their stores.

The availability of the Wii remains an issue for continued strength for Nintendo focused games as the lack of consoles acts as the gating factor to more growth. Our previous and on-going surveys suggest that Microsoft Xbox 360 is benefiting from the production constraints on the Wii while Sony Playstation continues to see the weakest demand among the major console manufacturers.

We completed our survey last night, just in time to capture the las hours of the Nintendo Wii pre-order process. Only 35% of the stores we contacted said we could even pre-order a Wii and the survey found fewer and fewer stores taking pre-orders as we closed in on Friday morning.In addition to inquiring about pre-orders we also asked which platform the Gamestop or EB Games employee recommended. Sony Playstation beat out the Wii by being the recommended platform at 43% of stores contacted while the Wii was recommded by 39%. Price was a large factor and some recommendations were based on the fact that the Wii will only be $250 versus either $499 or $599 for the Sony Playstation 3. 17% of our survey respondents recommended both platforms based on the age of the user. For under 13, the Wii was recommded and for games older than 13 the Sony PS3 was the recommended choice. It is interesting to us to note that the Microsoft Xbox 360 dominated our first Gamestop survey but not one survey respondent suggested this platform as an alternative to us. Looks like Microsoft XBOX could be facing some market share losses as the Wii and PS3 get into the marketplace.

Gamestop employees also told us that purchasing a Sony Playstation3 would be challending throughout the coming holiday season as most Gamestop have sold out of not only pre-order allotments but also expected inventory has been mostly spoken for informally. Demand for the Wii seems heavy as well and we were told to expect waiting times for these platforms even after the official launch dates.

We have launched a new survey at Gamestop (GME) and EB Games. The question we are asking this time is which game platform should a customer pre-order - The Wii from Nintendo or the Sony (SNE) Playstation 3?We are only asking Gamestop and EB Games (owned by Gamestop) to keep comparisons meaningful with our earlier surveys on gaming platforms since these are the same channel check data points in terms of store locations and personnel.

The Wii launches on November 19th so the pent up demand or frenzy to pre-order is much less than that of PS3 but we are interested to see which platform is going to be recommended by the Gamestop experts. Our first survey on the gaming platform area suggests that the Gamestop employees really prefer the Sony PS3 considering that in our first survey of top gaming platforms they suggested waiting for the PS3 over purchasing anything else at that time.

Next Page →