14 DAY TRIAL // Black Friday was said to be the day when retailers broke into profit for the first time during the year. This might be less true now, with the crisis looming over both buyers and sellers, but a videogame was one of the most searched for bargains during this year's Black Friday.
Sites like eBay and Shopping.com are saying that Wii Fit and the Nintendo Wii gaming console were some of the most searched for deals, while brick and mortar stores are arguing that videogames and related hardware were best sellers, with special deals drawing in huge amounts of customers.
Gamasutra posted a statement made by Colin Sebastian, who is working for Lazard Capital Markets. It appears that the Nintendo Wii is selling on eBay for more than the official price, which shows that even though supplies of the gaming device are low, people are willing to pay more in order to get their hands on it. It's a good sign for Nintendo, which has signaled that it plans to offer more consoles to stores than in the previous months.
Sebastian revealed that “Not surprisingly, our checks indicate that the most popular video game products over the weekend included the Wii and Wii Fit (Nintendo), Xbox 360 hardware bundles and Gears of War 2 (Microsoft), and Call of Duty V (ATVI)”.
Until now the videogame industry has not been one of the victims of the overall economic downturn. In September and October, as the big videogame titles of the year were launched and as the Xbox 360 got a price cut, the sales of games and hardware increased over the same period of 2007 and most analysts are saying that the Christmas shopping season will be strong, with sales rising over the last holiday shopping season.