Blog Report: December 2nd

The Official U.S. Playstation Blog
Walk off your Turkey Dinner with Black Friday Shopping
Tim Bender // Senior Vice President of Sales
November 25th, 2009
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/11/walk-off-your-turkey-dinner-with-black-friday-shopping/

It’s that time of season, when consumer becomes predator and goes hunting on black Friday. With door buster deals starting as early as 4 am, retailers are seem eager to get the holiday season started, as soon as possible. One latecomer to the black Friday bandwagon was the PS3. Rarely do I recall the PS3 being sold for any possible bundle under $400 during past black Friday’s, it just wasn’t a good deal. But now that they are $300, and there is a significant number of quality games in their repertoire, Sony strikes with not one quality black Friday bundle, but FIVE, spread across various retailers, each containing 2 free games ($100+ value). For Sony, this is the best possible scenario for closing out 2009. Spending the past 2 months, selling the “new” PS3 and building a successful marketing campaign around it, they now reach the largest consumer holiday of the year, in our culture, and decide to sell 5 bundles. I expect people to eat this up. Sony’s bundles you have the choice of various combinations of games, combined with a 120 GB PS3. Some of the games include; Little Big Planet GOTY Edition, Infamous, Killzone 2 or God of War Collection. NPD numbers pending, bravo Sony.

Set on Stun
Doorbusters and Videogames — Aint Capitalism Grand?
Shawn Deena
November 26th, 2009
http://setonstun.com/2009/11/doorbusters-and-videogames-aint-capitalism-grand/

We already talked a little about black Friday in one of my other posts, but this one takes the opposite stance of the previous. Instead of praising the video game deals on black Friday, Shawn (not me) questions the legitimacy of some of these deals. Best Buy for example was selling a Elite, which came as the holiday bundle plus 4 additional games. That’s six games! Granted some of these are a little dated, and may have sequels available; for the first time gamer I felt this is a stellar deal. Then selling new releases for $20 dollars cheaper, although may not be stellar, it is still cheaper than the usual $60 price tag. Some may not feel the same way though and see people purchasing gift cards over actual products, thus not even guaranteeing that the industry will see a share of those profits, despite the purchasers’ intent for their use. As I also stated before, Sony seemed very prepared for black Friday, offering five bundles, and Nintendo did a good job of utilizing its DSi ware service by bundling the new DSi with 5 pre-downloaded games. Regardless, when the NPD numbers hit, we will have a good idea of how well the big three performed. In the mean time, I remain hopeful.