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Hardware Shortages Weaken Holiday Sales

Posted by Zonk on from the not-so-much-with-the-forward-thinking dept.

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that GTA: San Andreas was the tops in December sales, but overall 2004 sales were somewhat down because of PS2 and Xbox hardware shortages. From the article: "That leaves the industry on negative growth of one per cent for the calendar year, and even considering software alone, December still saw negative growth of five per cent and brought the calendar year growth figure down to seven per cent."

8 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Why don't you by News+for+nerds · · Score: 2, Informative

    buy a GameCube, with RE4.

  2. What about the PC? by kaellinn18 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It looks like this article is only referring to console sales. What about the PC industry? One would think that it's sales increased, what with the release of WoW, EQ2, HL2, and Doom 3. Those are just the major one off the top of my head. I'm sure there are lots more.

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  3. I tried... by wickedj · · Score: 2, Informative

    to buy a new Xbox this Christmas just for Halo 2 but everywhere I went it was sold out, even used. I wasn't able to get one until January.

  4. Reminds me of a rather funny story... by Mitaphane · · Score: 4, Funny

    This holiday break one my friends had a temp position working at Gamestop. From the stories he told me it sounded like it was hell(stand around sort boxes, shitty pay, people that don't know what they're looking for, management that treated them like shit and treated their own employees more like potential theives than their customers). Anyway, his big annoyance at the job was there was a little number of PSTwo's(or whatever you call the newer slim version of the PS2) and people kept asking them if they had any in stock. Every few minutes they get a call from someone asking if they had them in stock. And despite my friend trying give friendly advice(go order online, suggesting other stores) people still got upset as if the store was suppose to have an unlimited number of PS2's.

    It got to the point where people calling for PS2's became a joke itself. He even started calling(and getting his friends to call too) the store asking questions not unlike what the real customers asked:

    "Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
    "Do you have any PS2's?"
    "No we do not."
    "Well, could you just make me one before I come in?"
    "No, we do not make the PS2's, only sell them."
    "You're sure you don't have any PS2's in the back?"

    "Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
    (big southern drawl) "You have any of 'em Zeeee-boxes?"
    "Um, you mean X-Box, sir?"
    "NO, NO, *Zeeee*-Box. Like Zebra"

    "Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
    (irate father voice)"Are you guys taking preorders for the PSP2?"
    "You mean PSP, sir?"
    "No it's a PS....shut up! I'm trying to asking the man about it!"

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    -Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
    1. Re:Reminds me of a rather funny story... by Gigahurt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I work part-time at Target. The funniest thing I heard all season: "I'm looking for a PSAdvanceBoxDS2." This really happened and the customer said it directly to me. She was stone-cold serious. Luckily, we were out of all of them so I didn't have to tell her what was wrong with her statement.

  5. There's still a shortage by Saige · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is still a shortage.

    I tried, last Friday (2 1/2 weeks after the holidays) to try an buy an XBox. Everywhere I checked, not only did they not have any in, they hadn't had any for almost a month, and had no clue when they were going to get more.

    I ended up looking around online, and finally found a place that had XBox + DVD player bundles for sale. That was all I could find. Though to be honest, I didn't go to the level of checking eBay or looking at random little web shops.

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    "You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
    1. Re:There's still a shortage by Phisbut · · Score: 2, Informative

      The shortage is not only on consoles.

      I was able to find a slim PS2 two weeks ago. Great, but I also needed a memory card (for both PS1 and PS2) if I were to save my games...

      It took me 9 days of shopping every day at EBgames, BestBuy, Toys'R'us, RadioShack, WalMart, Zellers and any other store that could remotely be associated with the idea of selling video game stuff before I could actually find a third party memory card somewhere.

      Even the third party providers are having trouble meeting demand even weeks after christmas.

      --
      After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
      - The Tao of Programming
  6. More info by Bloomy · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Gamerfeed has a report stating that the industry had over $9.9 billion in revenues in 2004, compared to $10 billion in 2003. And that while revenues were down, "total industry unit sales were up 4 percent over the same period last year."

    Also, a New York Times article (mirror) says PC games are not included in the current numbers. They will be available "in the next few days."