Things customers learn in the electronics dept.

[IT Grunt]

I still have my NES.

Pulled mine out the other day to play some Faxanadu. Still fun, even though the thing's nearly 22 years old now. Mine has developed a nasty glitch where you have to lock/unlock the cartridge several times before it'll power up properly. Drives me nuts. My SNES still works perfectly though. Legend of Zelda: A link to the past remains one of my favorite games of all time, and I still like to play it.

As for the Wii, you do realize it is the largest market / advertising manipulation campaign ever? Yes, Nintendo can punch out a few million units (probabaly already have) but they won't to keep the supply down so they can keep the prices, demand, and hype up.

Of this I have no doubt whatsoever. The fact that they are only shipping a few units at a time to stores instead of truckloads is evidence of that in my book.

[Daskinor]

I'll have to admit, I was shocked to learn that each store only received 6-12 at a time. Classic. Keep the supply low, so the demand is high and prices can stay up.

Our store only gets on average 4-6 a week. Every other store in the area gets about the same. When you take as many Wii's that Nintendo can produce and divide that by every store that sells the console. I bet you will get a number of 4-6 per store. Don't forget the demand in Japan, Canada, and Europe as well. I don't know how that would keep the price high, since the unit will be priced locked for at least a year or two.

[Hobgoblin]

So, I decided to go the route I've always taken when it comes to game consoles. Now that the Wii is out, the price on the Gamecube is only $99. That leaves plenty to get a few games (Most are $20 or less now), all for the same cost I would have paid just for a Wii console.

You are only looking at new Cubes then. You can get a used one at GameCrazy for $49.99 (comes with a 3 month warranty). That's the way to go right there. If it breaks (and they shouldn't, those things are as durable as, well, something really durable) you can take it back to the store you got it form and they will take care of you. I don't think I've ever had to do a refund on a GameCube, I've done them on Xbox's and PS2's, but never the Cube.

Oh, and when you pick it up, be sure to get a copy of Resident Evil 4. One of the best games on the system and looks gorgeous (it is better than the ps2 version). If you like survival horror, that's a great option, as is Eternal Darkness (although that's a tough one to find).

Of course, you can't go wrong with Mario Anything either.

[Andara Bledin]

I'll have to admit, I was shocked to learn that each store only received 6-12 at a time. Classic. Keep the supply low, so the demand is high and prices can stay up.

As for the Wii, you do realize it is the largest market / advertising manipulation campaign ever? Yes, Nintendo can punch out a few million units (probabaly already have) but they won't to keep the supply down so they can keep the prices, demand, and hype up.

Of this I have no doubt whatsoever. The fact that they are only shipping a few units at a time to stores instead of truckloads is evidence of that in my book.

Our store only gets on average 4-6 a week. Every other store in the area gets about the same. When you take as many Wii's that Nintendo can produce and divide that by every store that sells the console. I bet you will get a number of 4-6 per store. Don't forget the demand in Japan, Canada, and Europe as well. I don't know how that would keep the price high, since the unit will be priced locked for at least a year or two.

Nobody in the game console market intentionally shorts their product. They don't have to. Even if they saturated the market in the first month, they'd still sell as many as they wanted to at the full price. The very idea of an artificial shortage is silly and goes against all economic reason.

There is a very finite limit on how many consoles can be produced over the course of time. That number won't change unless you add or remove production facilities, and with all of what goes into putting one together, they're not going to build more just because their console was so phenomenally popular that it outsold their wildest imaginings.

I'm personally gonna wait until the market hits saturation, and we've had a few iterations of the hardware to work the bugs out (Y'know, Xbox's exploding, Wii controllers flying out of hands and smashing TVs, Playstation 3's causing any game developer thinking of creating a decent game for the platform to burst into flames, etc)

You have to admit that the flying Wiimotes were operator error. But the PS3 game developer comment is great.

43. Running an auto-restore on a display PC, thus wiping out all the store demo stuff is NOT ALLOWED! (Yes, this has actually happened. How this butthole did it without the admin password is beyond me)

Well, unless they've seriously changed some of the backend stuff, I can break into my Win2K Pro system at home (done it) or my XP Pro system here at work (not done it, but know how) without the Admin password with just a little info from the net. Do a quick Google, and I'd bet you can find out how to get into the Admin account without the password for Vista, too.

^-.-^

[DesignFox]

Gamecube has been going for $99 for some time now. I got mine a ways back when it was still popular around Christmas time for that price (got the last one on the shelf at my local best buy w00t!)

I love my original NES, SNES...I picked up a 64 somewhere along the line...I had a gameboy advance SP (until some fucktard jacked it out of our house...) I've got an old Genesis, and Game Gear, too. A PS1...and now I've got access to a PS2, too! I love my old video games!

Faxanadu rocked! Gah...memories!

[ArenaBoy]

I've heard rumours of Wii price drops sometime this fall. I have plenty of video game systems to keep me entertained. I own a PS2, a SNES, a Genesis, and a Dreamcast. Shame Sega's out of the console business, they've always had great games but at least they're still making games.

[Fire_on_High]

Wii controllers flying out of hands and smashing TVs

I wouldn't blame the company for idiots who can't hold onto a Wiimote. They've also beefed up the straps to compensate for abovementioned idiots.

[draggar]

Here's something I learned in my years of retail (and being an HP rep):

Only the toughest devices will last as a demo unit. They get run run run, poked, prodded, yanked, opened, closed, opened, closed, opened, jammed, closed, slapped, unplugged, moved, plugged, print, hit, messed with, broken, messed with, semi-fixed, unplugged, dropped, plugged (not necesarily in that order).

I used to gauge my best products by how often we replaced them and I told the customers that.

(In fact, for stores that have demos that work, I recommend asking the sales reps which demo devices get swapped out more often, don't buy those!!).

[draggar]

Pulled mine out the other day to play some Faxanadu. Still fun, even though the thing's nearly 22 years old now. Mine has developed a nasty glitch where you have to lock/unlock the cartridge several times before it'll power up properly. Drives me nuts. My SNES still works perfectly though. Legend of Zelda: A link to the past remains one of my favorite games of all time, and I still like to play it. .

That game rocked, I have it on my NES emulator on my computer (emulates a NES, I have many ROMs for it, too).

Nobody in the game console market intentionally shorts their product. They don't have to. Even if they saturated the market in the first month, they'd still sell as many as they wanted to at the full price. The very idea of an artificial shortage is silly and goes against all economic reason.

There is a very finite limit on how many consoles can be produced over the course of time. That number won't change unless you add or remove production facilities, and with all of what goes into putting one together, they're not going to build more just because their console was so phenomenally popular that it outsold their wildest imaginings.

You're talking about major corporations who have the ability to pump out many more of these units than they want to. Having a short supply allows them to keep the hype and prices up. The retailers love it because it keeps people coming into their stores looking for this product and when they can't find it, they might (I said MIGHT) buy something else.

If they flooded the market, then they would have that initial rush (lasting a month or two) then everyone would have it and no one would be buying it. Plus, if they're all bought right off the bat, then they'll possibly sell fewer units since the hype will be gone soon. Hype = demand.

[Andara Bledin]

I don't have an Atari or NES around any more. But I do have a Vectrex in storage.

Hype is only good for moving a product in the beginning. After the first rush, hype just gets old as all of the trendoids forget about whatever it was and move on to the next hype-fest. Having a short supply doesn't make the hype last longer, it just annoys everyone else who doesn't buy into hype that much more. Plus, when you have competition that releases at practically the same time, intentionally shorting supplies becomes a phenomenally boneheaded maneuver that I can't even suspect Sony or MS of doing, much less Nintendo.

^-.-^

[jamar]

(I never thought I'd be posting here- guess I was too idealistic)
Something unique to the region I reside in-

Just because it superficially resembles an iPod doesn't mean it is one. No, you can not take it to the Apple service center when it breaks because it is not a *real* iPod.

[ShockQueen]

40. Feel free to purchase a copy of XP with your new Vista laptop. No, it won't work, but you can still buy it. ANde by the way, software is NOT refundable once it's open, and that includes XP.

Donning my geeky inquistor hat a second (slightly ) but.........if you get a Vista-ready laptop and want to reformat it and put XP on it.........why wouldn't it work? My laptop was done up with XP, but "Vista capable", so I put Vista on it - didn't like it, so I put XP back on it after a format, and it works fine.

Is there something to newer laptops that prevents this? </threadjack>

[Dave1982]

Donning my geeky inquistor hat a second (slightly ) but.........if you get a Vista-ready laptop and want to reformat it and put XP on it.........why wouldn't it work? My laptop was done up with XP, but "Vista capable", so I put Vista on it - didn't like it, so I put XP back on it after a format, and it works fine.

Is there something to newer laptops that prevents this? </threadjack>

My understanding is that PCs that come preloaded with Vista are locked out from installing XP. Something in the ROM or BIOS or whatever. Much in the same way that new Macs are prevented from running OS9.

However, there's nothing to prevent you from downgrading to XP on a machine that did not originally come with Vista.

[Jack7957]

I can't recall the last time we got PS3s in.

I was at a truck stop a couple weeks ago and they had three PS3's on the shelf.