BibleBoy's Blog

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Shopping for Wii games

Since the N.E.S. passed on, I really have not been interested in console games. When the Super N.E.S. came out, I tried it for a while but adding buttons to the controller was really a turn off for me. This is actually the biggest reason why I've never really been into playing games on a PC. This changed a few months ago when I visited my sister and played her Wii. I was instantly addicted. Not only is the button problem solved but Nintendo has created an entirely new was to interact with your games and it's easy enough that my parents and even grandparent's have been in on the action. For Christmas, this was all I wanted and, by some miracle, it's actually what my parent's got me (and my dad didn't even run people over in the store to get it -- dont ask, long story).

I've been doing some shopping for Wii games and accessories, of course. Most of it is just window shopping because I really can not afford much and most stores are sold out anyway but I realized something when it came to shopping for games: retail stores have to be losing purchases from windows shoppers. If you go into a retail store to purchase a specific game, it's great but if your going in without knowing exactly what you want, you're probably not going to buy a game from them. The reason for this is the glass cases that they are all locked in. I found myself at Target and at Wal-Mart just browsing for games and when something sparked my interest, I wasn't able to read the description of the game because its on the back of the box. If your window shopping for games you basically need to consume an employees time for the duration and you dont want to do that, nor does the employee. I found myself heading home and looking online for games where I not only can read the descriptions but I can also find reviews on how other people liked the games. Maybe it's not instant gratification but at least you know you'll be getting a decent game.

While I can't really complain about this because it does end up saving me money, I am baffeled at how these stores haven't realized this. Retail stores are starting to face lots of pressure from online retailers because of the large price differences and you would think they would want to encourage the "browse around and buy what looks good" method of shopping but they fall short of that with those glass cases. I can certainly understand the shrinkage concerns but all of the games are already electronically tagged and they are certainly a lot cheaper than many other items in the store that would fit in your pocket much more easily than a DVD-size case.

For me, I think I'll be doing almost all of my Wii shopping online and possibly even subscribing to GameFly. Heck, used games isn't such a bad idea either and GameFly can offer me that too.

Labels: console games, retail, wii