Taking Stock

In case you hadn't noticed, it's the busiest time of the year. Aggressively priced hardware, an influx of new titles for all formats, old software franchises, bold new IP and marketing campaigns equal in cost to the gross national product of under-developed countries. It's practically Christmas, and a fat majority of the industry has been working its balls off to deliver the goods in these all-important weeks.

And there are none more busy than the retailers flogging the product you've been working so hard to perfect. In part one of our HMV interview, GamesIndustry.biz sat down with Tim Ellis, head of games, to get a frontline view of the Christmas retail madness, to find out which games are already pulling ahead of the pack and why there can never be enough highly-priced hardware on the shelves...

Demand is still outstripping supply by an absolute mile. To be fair to Nintendo they're keeping us in the loop and telling us what we're getting and it is turning up. But we're selling out so quickly at the moment it's frustrating for all parties concerned and it's the same everywhere. If we weren't getting any stock and everyone else was we'd be crying about it but we seem to be getting our fair share. Stock fluctuates from week to week but it's a steady supply and that's obviously what Nintendo are choosing to do.

There's no doubt about it, HMV is having a good fiscal year so far and we can really see the importance of games within the mix. And within that we can see the days when we get a delivery of Wii, it's that clear. They sell out so quickly. Our store on Oxford Street had a delivery last week and it sold out in 34 minutes.

No, no, we're not taking orders. Literally, we get the delivery and in our biggest store we've sold out in 34 minutes. And that's people coming into the store, they're coming in every day and asking throughout the week. That gives you an idea of how many we could actually sell. I shudder to think what we could actually sell.

Everyone had that perception with the GBA and GameCube. The GameCube was brilliant at first but quickly died off. I think a lot of people in the industry looked at the Wii in the same way, they weren't sure about the long-term sales and possibilities. Now you've only got to take a quick look and you'll see all the third-parties are massively behind the DS and the Wii.

Yes and no. Nintendo games are genuinely good, but I think third-parties are starting to catch up. Nintendo are always very strong with their own games. Companies like Sega, with Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Boogie from EA, Cooking Mama, some of the Ubisoft titles like My Word Coach — they aren't selling as well as Brain Training but it all adds up to a healthy market. The volumes on the hardware are such that it's now worthwhile for publishers to make the extra effort of working with the Wii. There's an awful lot of hardware growth on the DS Lite and Wii, therefore it's worth investing in the software.

Sales are brilliant. The price drop helped, it added a real step change. Supply of the 60GB is just about gone now so we're down to the 40GB unit.

Definitely. Our general consumer base tends to skew slightly upwards anyway. We don't have a problem up-selling, so just like the Xbox 360 Elite, we didn't have a problem selling that either. The price drop on the PS3 was great and it's quite easy for us to up-sell. When you're spending almost £300 I don't think it's a big shock to go higher — don't forget with the 60GB Sony made up some fantastic offers with software. For the consumer they were both brilliant offers.

Yes. I'd love to have a stockpile of 60GB PlayStation 3's for Christmas.

We can live in hope. Japan has got the 80GB model so we'll see.

The Xbox 360 has got over 300 games available and the PlayStation 3 has got nowhere near that figure. You look at the consumers on the web and they're asking for more games. I do think people are buying into the PS3 hardware now but they are desperate for more games. We'd like a few more games to shift, but we know that on the horizon there are some great titles coming, so we've got to be patient.

It's frightening, but in a good way. It's about keeping up with demand on absolutely everything. Pro Evolution Soccer has done so well, FIFA has too. It's always a good sign when you get a franchise that comes out year after year and you do better in terms of sales than the previous version. Those two franchises are incredible.

There's a lot of competing formats and that makes it harder for us to forecast sales but by the same token all of your eggs are not in the same basket so there are a lot more opportunities and we can try a lot more things. The next few years are looking pretty rosy.

The next few years look really, really encouraging for games sales as a whole, and this Christmas is going to be strong. It might be obvious to hear it from GAME and Gamestation but Woolworths are out there saying the same thing. Even the supermarkets. Everyone is giving games more space and they can see the benefits of that now and for the next few years. Competition is hotting up but that's what makes it interesting for us — we don't come to work to be bored.