I am a Toys R Us Employee, and I work in the electonics division. It's my job to sell and inventory the consoles we have. As such, I thought it would be nice to post a thread as a running commentary of my experiences selling all three consoles. This thread will do nicely!

The story is, I suspect, not unusual: I recieved a shipment of 16 PS3s, 20 Xbox 360 Premiums, and 36 Wiis on the same day back in early February (specifically, February 4th). I sold all 36 Wiis on that day in the early morning. Every two weeks since, on the dot, I've recieved a new shipment of Wiis, with the smallest shipment being 33 and the largest being 56. I have never once held a Wii in stock for more than 24 hours on the shelves: the last shipment was the first that did not sell out the second we opened, as it lasted almost an entire day before selling out. 

Of the 16 PS3s we recieved, I still have 4 remaining. However, it's important to note that during this time we had several PS3s returned (I assumed failed Ebay attempts), so we've actually probably sold around 16: still, our net sales are 12. For those interested: this averages out almost exactly to one PS3 sold each week. 

The Xbox360 is also still on its first shipment. We have sold 18 since early February. 

I get slightly more questions about the Xbox360 console than I do the PS3. I sell considerably more Xbox360 software than I do PS3 and about equal to the amount I sell for the Wii. 

I'll update this every now and then with more information about my experiences: for now, I thought I'd just put sales totals up, to show what this looks like from the perspective of someone on the inside. 

good thread idea. Anyone else work in retail around the world who can contribute?

This definitely is more informative than the whole "I went to store X and saw a pile of Y but couldn't find a Z"

EDIT: where abouts is your store? I imagine from a shipping of 36 Wiis that your store is fairly large. But the numbers are interesting since you've basically sold about 15-20 times as many Wiis as PS3's but the actual US wide numbers are much closer than that, where are the PS3's selling?

Yes, it is a fairly large shipment, for most stores: for whatever reason, Nintendo has given a lot more Wiis to Toys R Us Stores than to, say, the Gamestops or the EB Games. The Toys R Us stores in our area consistently get shipments of 30ish, while the Gamestop is lucky to get 10 a month.

My store is in Saint Louis, Missouri. The county is called Sunset Hills. My store's official designation is "Store 9565." Our sales number are slightly above average compared to a typical Toys R Us (not in systems specifically, I mean generally, to give you an idea of our store traffic).

It'd be interesting to know what happens next week at your Toys R Us - your comment about the last Wii shipment barely selling out on the first day.

Could this be the beginning of the supply vs demand normalization?

Hope you keep us updated next week! 

This makes sense, TRU is more a general audience toystore than a boutique game shop like EB or GS. This confirms that the casual buyers going for the Wii. OTOH, it means that the boutiques are probably selling all three consoles fairly evenly, if this example is representative of non-boutiques (TRU, costco, walmart, target, etc)

It definitely shows the demand is dropping (however slowly).. but i'd say barely selling all the wiis in one day means it isn't even close to normalization.. maybe when that 'one day' changes to a week we can say that with a bit more assertiveness

When they sell out of their Wiis the moment the next shipment comes in is when demand has normalized.

Today's observations (shift from 10 to 5:30).

A young German Child came in looking for a Wii game. He wanted a game that did not use the Wii-mote at all; he was used to PS2 games and wasn't comfortable with the new style of controller. His dad thought his Son would get over it, but his son did seem quite dissatisfied with the Wii controller. It seemed possible that the Wii just wasn't the right system for his son. Time will tell, I guess.

Total system sales for the day: 2 PSPs, 2 DS, and nothing else. That's a typical day (in terms of total systems sold) for a not-weekend, not-a-holiday day. I'd point out, however, that our DS sales are often 2:1 our PSP sales in terms of systems. Something like 1 PSP/2 DS or 2 PSP/5 DS would be quite common.

We started selling "Shrek the Third" two days ago, across all platforms, very much as we started selling Spiderman 3 a week ago (and will sell Pirates of the Caribbean a week from now). Something I noticed: we have a PS2 version, a DS version, a Gameboy version, an Xbox360 version, a Wii version, and a PC version.. but no PS3 version. My first thought was that perhaps we didn't carry it, but I've learned thats not the problem: it simply doesn't exist. Not that any of us actually care about purchasing Shrek (I doubt it, at least), but it is unusual for a cross-every-platform game such as Shrek to be omitted like that.

After work, I went to buy Command and Conquer 3 at the Gamestop across the street, since we only carry Educational PC titles and the Sims. I asked the worker there how his system sales were. He said that Wii sells the best, followed by Xbox360, followed by PS3, with a fairly large gap between all three.

I don't work until Sunday, when we get another Wii shipment. I will update this thread then.

I'd considered that, Legend, but this isnt just about Console sales -- it's about my experiences (as a whole) as a retail employee that sells games. The first example (where the child is dissatisfied with the Wii mote) is a good example of that -- nothing to do with sales, just a factual representation of how some of my more notable customers are reacting.

I say "more notable" because a large portion of my day is spent asking: "What can I help you find?" followed by the response: "I'm just browsing. Thanks."