Yet Another Sign Of Domination.

[johnlucas]

Nickelbackro said:

I was in my local Wal-mart yesterday and went to look at some DS games, Now the Walmart i shop at always had the setup of (from front of the aisle to back) PS3, PS2, PSP, XBox360, Wii, DS. However upon entering the aisle i was surprised at what I found, Wii and DS getting top billing at the front, Xbox360 still in the middle, and PS3/2/p with the bargain games at the end.

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this at any of their local walmart stores, because a corporation as large as walmart doing something like this would really tend to make me think they have great faith in the wii as a dominating platform.

 

The best way to tell who's the Hoss & who's not is to check out how things go at the retailers.

How much shelf space is alloted to each platform/overall company & who gets the biggest displays & toppest billing.

Also you must check out the knockoff/copycat scene.

I watch Wal-Mart & even Dollar General heavily to see what's going on. When I saw some Wii-reminiscent knockoff at Dollar General this past Christmas I knew Wii was champ. Ulti-motion in Wal-Mart & Hannah Montana-based dedicated consoles with controllers very reminiscent of Wii. The display in my local Wal-Mart just had flipped the arrangement of the companies from front to back.

It used to be Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo.
3 shelves allocated to Sony toward front with PS3 with 1 1/2 shelves, PS2 with 1 3/4 shelves & PSP with about 1/4 shelves. There's space overlap due to fading PS2, current PS3, & nearly gameless PSP.

2 shelves allocated to Microsoft for XBox 360 in the middle but with 1 shelf on one side of the divide with the PlayStations & the other one on side of the Nintendos. So you got an aisle inbetween the center console.

Then 3 shelves allocated to Nintendo toward back with 2 1/4 shelves for Wii & 1 3/4 shelves for DS (& random unsold GBA games). The Nintendo side is bursting due to so many games for both systems that they put some Wii games in DS shelves at bottom also just stacking DS games on floor shelves where system usually goes. This doesn't count the other special promotion shelves they get throughout electronic area. 1 whole iPod-promotion like case for Wii Play/Mario Kart & DS Spectrobes & Nerf N Strike. Another bundle case with carrying pouch stylus set with games like UNO & Crossword puzzles. Wii also has its own demo area.

Now the sides have finally been flipped with Nintendo's bursting Wii/DS shelves toward front & Sony's PlayStation empire toward back. XBox 360 stays right where it is inbetween both.
Now it's Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony finally reflecting what's been going on in the market all these years.

By the way, video rental stores like Blockbuster & even more so your local ones can tell you what's happening too.

John Lucas