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.

Yeah, it's not like it has the highest userbase or anything. Domination confirmed!

Hmm I do see people pushing sony games into the place where most customers wouldn't normally see them. Besides that I think wii and 360 are usually the main focus in big retail stores.

Well, it's been a couple of days since I've been in the local Wal-mart but last that I knew they hadn't changed anything. So next time I will take a look and post back my findings.

Walmart sucks for games dude - never shop walmart. The employees know shit all about games.

Definately shop Gamestop.


As for the setup I can't say the same. At my EB games I shop at, when you enter the store its PSP/PS3 on the right, and Wii/DS on the left right when you walk in. For 360 you have to go past the counter and on the left. PS2 is way at the back of the store along with PC and original Xbox games.

Another thought that pops into my head is this: If Xbox 360 and PS3 have a higher attach rate with a higher per game price point, then why would walmart do this unless they are making more money from Wii than they did from PS3 & Xbox 360.

It makes me wonder if the attach rate stuff is bogus, because I'm sure that a Company as large as Walmart wouldnt change product placement without good reason. iPods are always in front of the other MP3 players, Why? Because they are a high profit product with higher market share.

I have a disturbing little revelation for you all, which anybody with a head for numbers will have already realized: attach rates are ratios, meaning that they are not indicative of actual sales. An attach rate of 15 games sounds great at first, but if that system only has 5 million units sold, that means it's only sold 45 million units of software. While you could argue that this is a phenomenal number of games per user, it doesn't change the fact that the system has sold only 45 million units of software, far less than a system with 20 million units sold but an attach rate of 5 games.

Always look at the big picture before focusing on the little picture, or you will mistake the forest for a random collection of trees.

Yeah, it's not like the thread title has the words "yet another sign" instead of "this is the definitive sign".

I went to Wal-Mart last night and was surprised to see the Wii/DS and 360 sections flipped, so that the Wii section was now closer to the main isle. It's not like it's really any more visible...

I did actually take into account that attach rate is a ratio, i was considering the fact that between the Xbox 360 and PS3 they have over 50% of the market share with a supposedly higher attach rate. Now it may be that Wii shoppers tend to be Walmart shoppers vs a hardcore PS360 crowd that freqents places like gamestop and wii may actually have a higher attach rate at Walmart, but i don't think anyone outside of Walmart corporate headquarters that would have that info.