Wii Q&A Thread

[Strazos]

Yeah, I suppose I could confirm here that a lot of stores are going to be unleashing some units on Sunday.

[Viin]

It was funny, it was like I was watching the forum redone as a Live Action Movie when I went to GameStop tonight. There was a lady there looking to buy a Wii, obviously someone who's never been in a game store before, getting told that nope, sorry, we're all out but please come back this weekend! And then she pointed to the empty boxes on display, "Then what are those?"

Ahaha!

The GameStop umm lady said that the vendor pays for the "space" and they can do whatever they want with it, and they wanted to put empty boxes. Now, I'm not sure that's true or not, but whoever came up with that idea is retarded. If you go to a BestBuy you don't see 50 empty boxes of HDTVs, only to be told they don't have any. Ahahaha.

[Strazos]

I'm fairly sure that's not true. Schild or NiX would probably know for sure.

And if anyone is really responsible for those stupid displays in EBstop, it's the EBstop marketing twats.

[schild]

No, it's not EB. It's gaming companies.

It's Nintendo, EA, etc.

It's easier to ship cover art, dvd cases, and boxes than it is to create full marketing product. Also, holding a display box - even with nothing in it - really prods the brain. I COULD HAVE THIS WITH A GAME IN IT.

Again, cheap and clever. Really cheap. And Really Clever. Jain Zar is pissed because he didn't have the product but he could touch what it should be in.

Mission fuckin accomplished.

Edit: Also, it fits on all standard shelves from book stores to video stores to gaming stores to fucking 7-11.

[Velorath]

It's true that vendors pay for space in a lot of retail chains.  Many vendors will also periodically send reps out to make sure the stores have set up those spaces set up to their specs.  Some vendors are more agressive about it than others.  People from Leapfrog made regular visits to the TRU I worked at.  All told, they had a 20ft or so long by 8ft. tall section where only their products could be placed (that included the overstock shelf on the very top), and had anywhere between 1-4 people at a time come in probably around once a month or so.  Sometimes vendors paid to have new products displayed in one of the Feature Shop areas (just inside the entrance for instance). 

Now whether or not that was the case in this particular incident is anybody's guess, but more than likely the Gamestop lady was telling the truth.

[schild]

If companies did something other than standees, regular boxes, or poster space (the first and 3rd being severely limited in space), they'd have to restructure entire marketing campaigns. Empty boxes make sense. In both the economical and market friendly sense. Aside from that, I've said it like 8 times. Empty boxes since the NES - minimum. If you aren't used to it by now, well, I dunno, that kinda weirds me out.

[MrHat]

Best Buy is getting 40+_ a store if thier retail insider is to be believed.

I'm not waiting though.  I'm done.

[Velorath]

I might have gone to pick one up but I just had to spend $300 taking my rabbit to the vet.  Such is life.

[Yegolev]

Does your rabbit have motion sensors and a speaker?  That's an easy decision.

[Velorath]

Does your rabbit have motion sensors and a speaker?  That's an easy decision.

I'll see if I can get some installed next week when I go back to the vet.

[HaemishM]

He should have some easily accessible ports.

[Sky]

$300 on a rabbit? Just get a free rabbit of the opposite sex and make more.

[schild]

Found a lone copy of Twilight Princess for the Gamecube in a target. Exactly same graphics at 480p. I expect this to be about 27,000 times more fun than the Wiii version. At least.

[NiX]

Finally got to play some Wii and boy is it really fun. Especially people watching you play for the first time. Wii sports was Ok (only played Tennis and Boxing), but Rayman was a lot of fun.

[Jain Zar]

Again, cheap and clever. Really cheap. And Really Clever. Jain Zar is pissed because he didn't have the product but he could touch what it should be in.

Umm.. I am fully aware of what the gamestores do and don't fall for it.  Its merely completely stupid.  (For the record I got my Wii day 1 by stupidly freezing my ass off at a Best Buy.)

I refuse to accept the shitstorm of crap EBStop tries to pull.  I'm sorry you are happy with it.  I am not.

[schild]

Funny, cuz a page or two ago you were raging mad because you did fall for it. I mean no one gets that angry unless they got their hopes up. Like I did with Zelda. I assumed Nintendo wouldn't completely cripple the gamecube version. I was wrong. You assumed there was something in those boxes (or something like that). You were wrong. It's all good man. I just know to preorder everything. I get my preorder goodies and I get my shit on Day 1. Every time. Unless the manufacturer fucks up - but then, can't blame EB for that.

[NiX]

I'm fairly sure that's not true.

Late to reply, but it's true. We would get marketing directives and you HAD to put that shit out even if you had no copies of whatever they wanted you to display. The reps would come in and check for compliance and get your ass chewed out if you varied in any way.

Honestly, don't hate the EBStop employees that spew the "The company makes me!" line. Cause, that's the gods honest truth. The company is heavy handed and very afraid of anyone under a district manager thinking for themselves and/or making decisions.

You wouldn't believe how much shit I got in from my District Manager for doing this during the PSP launch:


Edit: Who wants to guess which games were on the other side of that wall?

[Strazos]

Prolly the PS2 wall?

@ Nix: yup, already been corrected. It's stupid....but hey at least the display boxes (in my store) are not the actual boxes the Wii comes in.

[Roac]

Consumers are familiar with boxes not holding the actual product.  What they usually expect however, is that if there is a box on the shelf then that product is for sale.  What they do not like is seeing a row of boxes on shelves (I don't mean window displays) and not actually having any product to buy.  The point of having stuff on shelves is to display available stock; white space means out of stock.

There is a gap here between what most consumers have been trained to expect, and what some game stores do in practice.  I can't imagine why these stores would do that, because it will come off to many potential customers as deceptive and dishonest.

[Yegolev]

I decided to sleep in rather than follow up on a solid lead that TRU was going to have 20-30 Wii yesterday.

[Sky]

Consumers are familiar with boxes not holding the actual product.

No, they aren't. Maybe some game consumers are, but that's a small fraction of consumers. Nobody expects to pick up a vacuum cleaner at walmart and have it be an empty box.

Of course, I don't really buy my games from EB whenever possible. The alliteration electronics usually does the trick, usually have a better selection of pc games, and a bigger bargain bin.

[CmdrSlack]

alliteration electronics

Best Buy?  Circuit City? 

That's the first time I've seen someone call 'em that.  That's pretty nifty.

[Roac]

No, they aren't. Maybe some game consumers are, but that's a small fraction of consumers. Nobody expects to pick up a vacuum cleaner at walmart and have it be an empty box.

Around here anyway, expensive electronics, DVDs, and the like tend to be either sealed in large heavy plastic boxes with conspicuous ID tags, in a locked glass cabinet, or empty.  Best Buy, WalMart, and Toys R Us do each of those, respectively (well, WalMart here does both 1 & 2).  Stores have always been looking to keep small and expensive, small and desirable, or large and VERY expensive items out of customer's hands.  What is new is misrepresenting stock.  Game consumers find that their purchases often fall into one of those three categories, but they arne't not the only products which do.

[Jain Zar]

Funny, cuz a page or two ago you were raging mad because you did fall for it. I mean no one gets that angry unless they got their hopes up. Like I did with Zelda. I assumed Nintendo wouldn't completely cripple the gamecube version. I was wrong. You assumed there was something in those boxes (or something like that). You were wrong. It's all good man. I just know to preorder everything. I get my preorder goodies and I get my shit on Day 1. Every time. Unless the manufacturer fucks up - but then, can't blame EB for that.

I don't believe I ever said I have fallen for it.  Again, I know the shit they pull, it annoys me, and I have empathy for normal people who aren't used to the fucktardery EBStop pulls.
And again, preorders suck ass.  The thought of having to put money down for a product before you even see it, especially in the videogame industry where games can be buggy to the point of damaging a system (hey Pool of Radiance Myth Drannor!) or normally just plain sucking offends and annoys me.

GASP!  Go into a store the day of a highly publicized release and there is enough copies to cover most normal demand?

Who woulda thought?

These days the only things I preorder are:
A: Stuff that gives me cool freebies.  The DS Castlevania Portrait of Ruin preorder perks were fantastic.  Probably the best ever given out with a game. 
B: Games I know will be awesome or titles I won't be able to find easily.  (Super Robot Taisen OG 1-2 aren't easy to find games. Your average EA sports shitfest will glut shelves.)
C: Hard to find toys because the 2 local Walmarts have assy distribution and I don't like hunting down overpriced plastic and diecast statues of my favorite robots in disguise.

For A its also a bit of B in it.  Some games I almost bought just for the freebie then common sense took over.  This would include DoA Xtreme 2 and Lost Planet.  The former was iffy with a mediocre freebie and the latter has a good freebie and good Famitsu scores but its nothing I have to have and will wait for reviews.  (Much like how the DoA game has gotten meh reviews.)

B is the one I do least and tend to be more out of laziness than actual intelligent purchasing decisions.  I rarely do this one, though SRT OG 1 and 2 were obviously grabs.  Plus the iffy games tend to go to budget pricing where I get most titles anyhow.  Some potential B games I didn't get were Super Swing Golf and Metal Slug which I am waiting for more reviews on.  (I know you mentioned Metal Slug but honestly I don't take your game opinions very seriously Schild.  To you Disgaea 2 was a must play masterpiece while I found it totally underwhelming and boring.  And I am a total whore for turn based strategy games.  To the fact I whine when  games use a real time combat engine and not turn based.)

C: Is a thing of convenience and every toy I want has already fallen off the truck in Hong Kong and has reviews up online months in advance.  Plus for me my Transformers are basically statues I can play with and not fragile (And usually assloads cheaper.) so being able to look at a picture lets me know if I want it.

EDIT: Ironically today's Penny Arcade has a newspost and comic devoted to the very things gamestores do that I have bitched about so much and a couple of you have defended.

[Strazos]

Well, today they bitched about how gamestores purposely may order enough of a game to fill pre-orders + some (except for huge titles), so they can later generate lots of used sales on the game...they're probably right, and I hate it. Granted, you also have to figure in the fact that these places only have a limited amount of shelf and storage space.

Personally, I only buy used when I have no other choice. And I find some of the prices we sell shit at, when compared to how much credit we gave for the item when it was traded in, to be downright appalling.

[Margalis]

I showed up at 5:30 AM to get a Wii at Target and all the tickets had already been passed out.

Oh well, I did have fun playing Wii sports with my friends later that afternoon. Wii sports is really a blast.

[NiX]

Granted, you also have to figure in the fact that these places only have a limited amount of shelf and storage space.

You'd be surprised how much space is wasted on shit they just won't recall and get rid of. They're just greedy and want to get used sales on everything. Even things they can't.

[Velorath]

Normally I'm not one to link to Penny Arcade comics, but today's just sort of fit in with the conversation here.

[Strazos]

I mean, maybe we could send some of the used Xbricks back, but that would only free up about 5 feet in our store. The one I am at is less than a year old, so we don't have Too much truely useless junk.

[Strazos]

Normally I'm not one to link to Penny Arcade comics, but today's just sort of fit in with the conversation here.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to earlier.

[StGabe]

For your enjoyment, my Wii story reposted (I "camped" for one this past Saturday):

Was at a housewarming party on Saturday night and we were talking Wii. The girl whose house was being warmed wanted to go get a Wii for her boyfriend for Christmas and another guy was interested too. My wife and I went to Bestbuy just to "check it out" at about 2:30 am. There were 11 people in line already and one claimed that the print ad guaranteed at least 15 Wii's. I was just buzzed enough still to jump out and get in line. I got my two friends to show up by 3am and we were 12th, 14th and 15th in line. The line kept filling slowly and by about 4:30am there were at least 30 people. According to the guy next to me the other two Bestbuy's in the area had already had 18 and 30 people in line at 1:30am (this was a brand new BestBuy in the Signal Hill area of Long Beach and so I guess less people new about it).

It rained twice, just briefly. Overall it was a very cold day for Long Beach (even in December it doesn't usually get that cold here). Fortunately there was an AM/PM across the street with hot cocoa and a toilet. At 6am the BestBuy guy shows up and at 6:30 am they count us off. At this point there are about 50-60 people there already. He counts off 24 Wii's worth and tells everyone else to go home (a few hopefuls stay in case someone's credit card gets rejected or something but everyone else goes). At 7am they hand out tickets and we get ours. Then at 8am we get to go in. Between 6:30 and 8:30 there were probably at least 50 people who tried to get in line. The routine was: a bunch of people would get in line; we'd tell them that they'd already counted off the number of Wii's they had or handed out tickets and a few would leave; the rest would stay until the BestBuy guy came out and said, "what the fuck are you guys doing here, didn't they tell you we're out?"

Finally got my Wii at 8:30am. They had all the games I wanted (Elebits, Trauma Center and Zelda) but no cables or extra joysticks. Slept until 2pm and then got to playing. So far: Elebits isn't as good as I wanted it to be, Trauma Center is better and Zelda, which I had no expectations of (haven't played a Zelda seriously since the NES) is pretty good.

First time I've "camped out" for a console.

Other randomness:
-- At 4am I regaled the line with Johnny Cash hits.
-- #6 in line sold his spot to someone for $100.
-- #2 and #3 in line were a Grandmother and friend getting Wii's for the grandkids.
-- One of the guys I went with had camped out 4 times for consoles before and only got one once.
-- Cops were hanging out from 6am on.  This being Long Beach I was actually kinda glad they were there.
-- A mom came at 8am and, upon finding out she wouldn't get a spot, tried (and I think succeeded) to trade her PS3 that she'd gotten earlier for a Wii+Cash.
-- Goodwill with my wife over all this was assured by letting her buy a pair of $200 jeans.
-- We are moving this week and had a mish mash of clothes and stuff left in our car. I ended up wearing my wife's jacket with way-too-short sleeves and a crazy ski hat. I looked like a hobo who got dressed with random crap from a Nordstrom's dumpster.

Much craziness. In the end, worth it for the good stories if nothing else (I still have a few days off before starting a new job so the sleep loss wasn't that big of a deal).

Now back to Trauma Center.

[schild]

Trauma Center is better than Zelda.

On that note, best title for the system thus far imo? Super Swing Golf. Sure, it's the golf loli-fest, but it's one hell of a fun party title from the guys behind Fatal Frame.

[Azazel]

Consumers are familiar with boxes not holding the actual product.  What they usually expect however, is that if there is a box on the shelf then that product is for sale.  What they do not like is seeing a row of boxes on shelves (I don't mean window displays) and not actually having any product to buy.  The point of having stuff on shelves is to display available stock; white space means out of stock.

This is very true. It also means consumers end up wasting a ton of fucking time in lines waiting to ask the staff if they have any of item x in stock, so the salesdroids can tell the people for the 985th time that day that sorry we're out of stock.

Went and did the big shop today. Big supermarket run, took all that shit home, then I decided we should go do the final Christmas shopping stuff (ie I wanted to buy me some Star Wars figurines). Bought myself a Lego Soccer game (which my Mum will "give" to me) then wandered over to Big W's console area. I saw their Wii display boxes there and thought fuckit, I'll buy one. No prices on display though, and only about 4 games, no accessories. They were out. Went downstairs to JB Hi-Fi and where the other game place used to be (it had disappeared) and they had a series of lines 9 people deep. They had empty Wii boxes too, with prices, but they also had PS2 boxes with PS2s in them, taped up. On the sales floor where you could pick them up and look at them. Their Wii boxes were empty because they were also sold out (I rang the store I was standing inside to avoid the queue to ask if they had the things in stock).

We split up. She went to EB, I went to TRU. EB had boxes on the shelves and price signs everywhere, naturally, but no stock. TRU had a limited number of display boxes but had 2 left. The guy held one for me while i waited for her to get back, some other peopel came and bought the other one. We got the last one int he entire mall, it seemed.

So anyway. Out of 4 retailers, 4 of them had empty boxes on the shelves. 2 had prices up, 1 had the product actually in stock, (but I'm sure they didnt take the boxes down after we left), and 1 had boxes with consoles in them on the floor (literally, stacked on the floor).

So anyway, got a Wii on a whim and with about 30 minutes of footwork. I feel sorry for those people who camped for it and were otherwise disappointed though. We got the Wii Sports and whatever that other game is that comes packed with a second wiimote. We'll open it Monday. Also got some wiimote covers and replacement wrist straps in case I decide to play after pleasuring myself but forget to hose myself down first.

So what are the games that are worthwhile, as in not one-day gimmicks or stuff that's better played on a normal console?

[Strazos]

Zelda, if you like Zelda and are not named Eric Schild. 

[Roac]

Zelda, if you like Zelda and are not named Eric Schild. 

Yes.  It's one of the best games of the year (not the, but one of).  Trauma Center is supposedly a good game - my wife and her brother love it.  I can't stand it, but because it's not my type of game.  Red Steel is just ok, but can be fun because of using the Wiimote for targeting.  Consider it an average FPS + Wiimote goodness.  Super Monkey Ball is ok.  Some people really enjoy it, but I found the controls difficult to work with.  Good party game.  Marvel is an ok game - it's an isometric action fragfest.  Walk around, slice enemies to bits.  You get to upgrade your characters as you go, and have an assortment of powers available to you.  Think original Gauntlet.