(tried looking for the "general retailer observation" thread, but couldn't find it...)

Spent about one hour wandering around one of our (Australian) big shopping centre yesterday (Knox) - and spent a good amount of time in the EB.

 - The big news, is definitely GTA4. Its getting a huge amount of publicity - the front of the store is covered in promo posters, there is a dedicated looping movie/screen near the back, there are "dummy" boxes for both PS3/360(all at $119.95 AU), at least 2 pre-order deals, and more.

 - RockBand has arrived! They had a demo station setup - and there was a sizable crowd watching just a single person play the drums. It actually didn't look anywhere as cool as I thought, but I guess it gets a lot better with all three people involved.

 - GT:P has a good amount of promotion, with a set of dummy boxes and "Only on PS3" advertised. It was also part of the running reel EB had running for games in general.

 - Mario Kart:Wii also had a significant amount of promotional posters & dummy boxes. Typical EB - they are advertising the game as "Pre-order now, and get a steering wheel valued at $20 for free!" :<.  

 - They had a good number of dummy boxes for the DS/Wii out the front (DS I think is down to $176? and Wii still around the $399 mark) - with "Now back in stock" heavily advertised. Guess they are both still in "sold out" status for most places in Oz.

 - NO sign of Brawl or WiiFit - at all. 

 - huge number of unsold + ex-owned titles on sale in middle of the store. Most interestingly - they had a clearance on several 360 titles (which they obviously over-ordered, and under sold). These are: PGR3, Kameo & ..(can't remember). Now all part of the "3 for $50" offer, which is primarily for PS2 old titles.

In general, there is a lot more space being taken up by next-gen games. The Wii, 360, DS are all maintaining shelf space - with the PS3 still not quite up to the space of the 360 (about half), and with maybe half of this space dedicated to BluRay movies. Still heaps of space for PS2 (ex-owned primarily),and with the "casual" (Buzz/Singstar) games up the back in their own spot.

The big news I thought - the PSP seems to be effectively DEAD. Its shelf space has been halved, and moved to behind the counter (where its hardest for consumers to get access to it). There was ZERO advertising for any PSP title (entire store), half the PSP space was for pre-owned, half the remaining for "coming soon" - and the remainder (so more than 20 boxes) all "New releases". About half of this was "FF Tactics".

Unless something big changes, I think its certain that retailers will drop the PSP before the PS2 - and it will be the next device that is effectively phased out. In Australia at least ;) 

Why do you have a smiley face after "phased out"?