I guess I'll chime in since you wanted more retailer perspective.

I'm the Product Flow Supervisor for Circuit City in Clarksville, TN. We're a micro store...so our numbers appear smaller, but are reflective of our company as a whole. Just for numbers sake, the average Circuit City store carries about 30-40 of a particular console. Larger stores carry up to 55 and my location typically has about 15-20 in stock at a given time.

Concerning retailer profit on consoles, attachments make the most money. Of the three, the order of attachment sales is as follows: Wii, 360, DS, PSP, PS3. The Wii's success in the department can likely be attributed to the fact that most people buy it intending to use it with four players and the fact that the Wii controller is actually two different attachments.

The 360's customization focus, market place points, Xbox live cards, as well as the new black accessories makes up most of the 360 attachments and secures a solid number two spot.

The handhelds hold down the number three and four spots because of the sheer amount of accessories it has. Screen protectors, cases, and stylus pens are the majority of sales. Gaming-to-go requires more ways to power and protect your investment, so sales are usually strong. Most attachment's are purchased at the time the unit is sold in the form of a value pack.

The PS3 up until recently didn't really offer much in terms of accessories. Most buyers seem to do so with the intent of playing alone or online. This severely limits the amount of sales, because all you need is right out of the box. The biggest pitch is cables since standard AV cables is all you get.

At Circuit City, the attachment we make the most money on is our City Advantage Protection Plan; particularly at my location. We offer two types of plans...both of which last for two years. We have a regular protection plan which ensures it will work like new for the next two years under normal conditions. The other is an accidental damage warranty which protects against anything ranging from spills to sand damage. The latter, we sell plenty of on our consoles because most of our customers come from Fort Campbell, KY and they wish to take it with them to the Middle East.

Most of our protection plan sales come with the purchase of handhelds, but the Wii isn't all that far behind since the protection includes the controller as well.

More on actual console sales to follow...

Please allow me to rephrase that:

Wii sports ia a party borne bacteria that induces the following symptoms:

1. Hysterical Laughter
2. Shaking of limbs and body
3. Severe exposure may induce patient to sprouting Wii jokes and change in partying habit

Nice, Saintelisan86! Thanks for the update.

Hope we got update on monday from Bodhesatva too. :)

SHIPMENTS vs SALES

Obviously, the Xbox 360 is our most consistent seller because supply isn't a problem and they are firmly entrenched in the console war. With the elite (keep in mind my micro store status), we received 8 consoles for the launch and they sold out by the end of the day. During the month of may, we received two more shipments of two consoles each. We've had two in stock for about a week and a half now. We sell about 15-20 Premium and 1-2 Core consoles each month.

With the PS3, shipments of about 10-15 came in twice in the first two months of launch. They both sold out. In February, we received a shipment of 16. To my knowledge, we haven't sold more than 1-2 per week since then and they are replenished by the end of the week.

With the Wii, Circuit City has gone the Wii-launch (Har-Har!) route. Our major warehouse stockpiles all Wiis the company is alloted. Every two to three weeks, shipments are sent out to every location and the Wii is featured in our national ad. At my location, the shipment is usually 12-15, but looking at the allotment logs on our intranet, major market stores receive 40-50. We still have lines forming at these Wii-launches, but never in excess of five customers. We do however, sell out before the days end.

PSP sales historically have been pretty strong in our location, but it fluctuates heavily based on when our Army Post has been deployed. As of late, we've seen a major drop...but the entertainment pack SKU does quite well for itself. I don't remember the last time I sold a PSP that wasn't the entertainment pack. As of now, we usually sell under 10 per month.

The DS has seen an upswing in recent months. Christmas (obviously) was just crazy. We didn't have any in stock at all during December and didn't start seeing steady stock until February. We typically sell about 20-25 DSs per month with the majority of sales being the Onyx SKU.

Again, take note that I'm in a micro Circuit City. For rough estimates of larger stores, you can usually multiply our locations numbers by about 2.5-3. Also of note is that we're a military town and the majority of our customers are active duty soldiers within the 18-25 age group.

I can't wait to see if his psychic powers accurately portrayed how many Wiis he is going to get!

Thanks for the update, Saintelistan86. Much appreciated.

@Bodhesatva and Saintelistan86:

Thank you guys - this is one of the threads that I look forward to reading. Numbers are nice and more accurate than individual testimonies, but you guys are the human element that makes these accounts interesting.

Keep it up - please!

On a related note, is it possible that you let us, o faithful readers, how the Elite is selling, and perhaps more importantly, how the return rate/RRoD rate is for the Elite? It'd be interesting to see how it's stacking up against the PS3 in terms of sales and how it's stacking up against the Premium/Core models in terms of reliability. 

That's awesome! I think this is one of the best threads on this website.. I can't wait to here more!

Thanks Bod and Saint!

Wow this thread is awesome. Love the retail insight. Cant find that anywhere else. This is neat.

Of the 8 Elites we've received (6 sold) at my location, one has been returned "defective". Normally, I like to hook 'em up and see if they're really broken before we ship 'em off to the vendor, but I didn't get a chance with this one. Soooo, so far 1/6.

Only one Wii has been returned as "defective". I promptly hooked it up and enjoyed playing some Wii Sports in my final two hours of work on a system that supposedly couldn't even turn on.

Our returns on opened PS3s have been pretty low as well. I estimate that we've sold maybe 40 at our location since launch and about four have come back "defective". I got to test out two of these four and they were indeed defective. Sooo, about 1/10.

Working with such small quantities, my numbers are far from scientific.

There were plenty of disappointed eBay salesmen, though. One dude brought us an unopened PS3 28 days after he purchased it and tried to tell me that Wal-Mart had it twenty dollars cheaper. I just chuckled. I guess people don't know that you don't have to come up with flagrant excuses to return something; particularly if it's unopened.