Demo stations.

In my sample of major gaming retailers in my downtown area every store has the Move starter pack in stock and they have the 320Gig Move bundle in stock (some don't have the stand alone controller in stock)...bar 1.

The one store that has no Move starter packs, no Move controllers and no 320Gig Move bundle is the one with a Move demonstration station set up that allows customers to actually give it a go.

When I was in that store there was a prospective customer giving table tennis on Sports Champs a go, he wasn't all that good but he was totally blown away by how the game played that he made his mind up instantly. The store clerk tried to be even handed and talked a bit about Kinect, even after the guy said he wanted to buy PS3+Move. But he was so impressed with table tennis on sports champs that his mind was made up. He did mention that it worked much better than Wii, so I assume he'd played a bit of Wii table tennis, and he was still blown away with Move.

So in the Kinect vs. Move war this holiday I think it will come down to who has the most demo stations set up at retailer outlets (assuming supply constraints don't have too big of an effect). If a retailer only has Kinect set up for customers to try then Kinect will fly out the door, and Move will have sluggish sales. If a retailer only has Move set up for customers to try then Move will fly out the door and Kinect sales will be muted (or at least lower than Move at that store). If they have neither set up for customer demonstration then relative sales of both will be lower and I think it will come down to historical regional preferences (i.e. EMEAA (excl UK and Aussie) cf Americas). If they have both set up for demonstration then it would be interesting to see what that retailer experiences in relative sales, and whether it breaks along historical regional differences or it goes against historical regional differences.

So, what do you think. How important are demo stations to the local/regional/global sales success of Move?

No trolling please, just rational, considered points of view. Calm expressions of preference are welcome.

Good luck with that :D

joking aside, I agree. Nothing proves your product is good better than a demostation

I really believe that this is / will be Move's biggest selling point.  Until you play Move you won't / can't appreciate or respect actually how well it works.  After playing the Wii, I think many people have become conditioned to the certain hiccups associated with the Wii.   After playing Move, I think it reduces a lot of these hiccups while improving the visual fidelity.  

From the outside looking in,  Move is a Wii clone.  From the inside looking out, it's a superior version of the Wii that takes / makes software more fun because of how it works better. (See Table Tennis). 

I don't know about Kinect just yet.  Kinect is going to be advertised like crazy. It will sell a decent amount on the front-side. If it actually proves to be fun?  It might sell like hot-cakes.  If it turns out to be all Fluff and no substance, I don't think it will have the staying power beyond this holiday.   It's more of an unknown than Move IMO because it's actual functionality and software support is severely in question in my eyes.   The Move on the other hand has a proven formula and just improved upon it.

there was a move booth at my local Westfield shopping centre, it was awesome 

and it happened to be next to an Eb games 

I laugh when people talk down anywhere were there is Move sold out and say oh but i see move oh the selves at my store. have they heard of empty boxes. i remember when Wii was sold out but they had the Wii boxs hanging up only for them to say, sorry have none. 

This depends alot on the consumer. I mean during the N64 era at least where I lived their were demo stations in every store even Costco and Nintendo had a contract with McDonalds which had N64's in store. Similarily when the GameCube launched Nintendo had it in two of the 3 McDonalds in my city, Walmart , FutureShop , Zellers and all the other retailers had demo stations and you know what even though their were no PS2 stations in McDonalds and many of the retailers Nintendo still got its butt handed to it.

I think the big thing about demo stations is that they get impulse buys. Who buys these impulse buys ? (Casual gamers who don't know what they want). Now why do I say that? The hardcore gamers already know what they want to buy they come to the store with that in mind. Sure the hardcore gamer doesn't mind playing a demo but their mind is already made up. That is why the N64 and GameCube didn't do so well despite way more demo's and ads on TV, it didn't matter how much Nintendo pushed it because they were trying to advertise to the hardcore which already knew what they wanted (PS2).

But the Wii started a trend and due to Ellen , Oprah and all the senior citizen magazines and ads aimed at non-gamers suddenly these non-gamers who don't know much about gaming think its cool. Then these non-gamers go to a store say for a Wii or maybe nothing game related like a DVD and they see a Move demo. They play the demo and go cool you know what this works well and is fun I'll buy it. Then they whip out their wallets and purses and purchase it without knowing which games are coming because to be honest they don't really care.

So yes these demo stations will help sales, mainly because both Sony and Microsoft are after the impulsive casual gamer.

When demonstrating how a game plays, I think you are right. Demo stations would be the only thing to do that properly.

I remember when my local GAME used to have demo stations, I remember playing the likes of Wave Race 64, Tomb Raider, Super Smash Bros and Tekken in store.

The most recent ones permently in store where 360s until 2007, I remember.

Or it can simply be due to the stores location and the communities within its vecinity.

Demo stations come at an incredible cost if Sony has to do it on a wide scale in individual countries within individual stores among competing retailers, then that is quite a tab. More than Microsoft's Kinect marketing campaign, I don't know?

If it won't sell without a demo station, then that is a red flag of MARKETING FAILURE on the part of Sony. I recommend Sony rectify this situation and fire their entire marketing division. There are plenty of bright, young people who would do much better than those career long schmucks currently sitting there on their fat asses getting embarassed annually by Microsoft's marketing division.

As for the "Move vs. Kinect War" it should be aptly renamed to the "Wii vs. Move and Kinect War." I don't think Move and Kinect are mutually exclusive. I do think the Wii/Move is mutually exclusive just as Wii/Kinect is mutually exclusive.

Funny thing is one gaming store has a PS2 demo station (has had one since it opened about 2 years ago), but never had a PS3 demo staton, and is too small and cramped to have either a Kinect or Move demo station. It's also got a 360 demo station.

@killiana1a, yes and no. Kinect and Move are mutually exclusive to the new console buyer. No one is going to buy both PS3 Move and 360 Kinect this holidays. Well maybe a few people will, but it's a negligible market segment. It's more likely that a person will buy Wii 360 Kinect,or Wii PS3 Move, because in terms of a 2 console purchase those options offer a much lower price than PS3 360, and a greater variety of games because Wii has so few multiplats with the HD consoles. However to the owner of a PS3 and/or 360 then getting both Kinect and Move this holidays is a distinct possibility, and somewhat more likely than buying a 3rd console (Wii).

I also think that retailers, who are competing with other retailers of course, would be wise to set up demo stations for one or other of the new motion control devices this holidays. Because it will increase the foot traffic through their store, and consequently increase sales generally at that store. Hence in many cases neither Sony nor MS would need to bear the full cost of setting up a demo station. And in many cases they probably don't.