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Black Friday 2016 Retail Musings

statham

Member
I couldn't find a thread, so I copied 2015 thread, sorry and thanks! chobel.
You know the drill people, in this thread you report back on your shopping experiences this Black Friday. What games and/or systems did you see selling, was something sold out, were people buying horrible shit and you felt sad for their kids!? Give details!

Now that most sales start Thursday, it is important to include those anecdotes as well. It is also important to note that individual anecdotes and snapshots of sales periods are not barometers of actual sales rates, however this is in all good fun and could actually indicate consumer attention/behavior and awareness.

Most of the text shamelessly stolen from older threads by LOCK :p

Post away!

generic, lock if old.
Don't reply to chobel's quote its from last year.
 

Toki767

Member
Couldn't find a single New 3DS in stores.

There were a stupid amount of Uncharted 4 PS4 bundles though.

Less so Xbox One S bundles.

Not sure if that was because most people picked up an Xbox One or because there was just less stock of it in general.
 
The day before Black Friday, I must have saw at least 100 PS4s and Xbox Ones on the floor at Best Buy. I have never seen so many consoles lined up on the floor like that.

Same thing with the 4K TVs too. I want to go back tomorrow to see what the store looks like now, did all my shopping online this year.
 
Couldn't find a single New 3DS in stores.

There were a stupid amount of Uncharted 4 PS4 bundles though.

Less so Xbox One S bundles.

Not sure if that was because most people picked up an Xbox One or because there was just less stock of it in general.


Is the Uncharted bundle an OG model or slim?
 

statham

Member
from twitter.
CyESOt8UkAArZ4M.jpg:large
hour after opening.
 
Only stor eI checked was walmart, and I saw plenty of ps4's moving, and a ton of 4k TV's. Snagged the last 2 copies of walmart-branded Doom for ps4.

Granted this was thursday night.
 

Chindogg

Member
Every Best Buy in town sold out of the Warcraft movie.

That's insane to me.

Did it come with some type of in-game exclusive for WoW or Overwatch or something?

A month of WoW, Gul'dan for Heroes of The Storm, and Medivh for Hearthstone. So it ends up being a net positive for buying the movie. Still it's hilarious that people bought it up.
 

Effect

Member
from twitter.

hour after opening.

Pretty much how the stores (Target, Walmart, Best Buy) I went into today looked. Plenty of PS4s and XB1s (mainly the 1TB version. The 500gb versions did better from the looks of things) around. A few PS4 Pros behind the glass. Nothing Nintendo hardware related was left save maybe a few controllers.
 
Pretty much how the stores (Target, Walmart, Best Buy) I went into today looked. Plenty of PS4s and XB1s (mainly the 1TB version. The 500gb versions did better from the looks of things) around. A few PS4 Pros behind the glass. Nothing Nintendo hardware related was left save maybe a few controllers.

Same. I went to a couple stores before work tonight (so around 9:30 PM) just to see if I could luck out on something. Floor was full of PS4s, both Pro and standard. There were fewer XB1 but still plenty. Hit up the Nintendo section and there was absolutely nothing.

They didn't even have 3DS XLs which are what I was after.
 

statham

Member
Pretty much how the stores (Target, Walmart, Best Buy) I went into today looked. Plenty of PS4s and XB1s (mainly the 1TB version. The 500gb versions did better from the looks of things) around. A few PS4 Pros behind the glass. Nothing Nintendo hardware related was left save maybe a few controllers.

from when I looked yesterday, anything 500GB was sold out on Xbox side, slim looks like its sold out on Target today, Pro still available.
http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=ps4 slim
 
I cashiered at Target yesterday.

I checked out about a dozen of the n3DS bundles.

One PS4.

0 Xbones.

From what I saw it was about the same at other lanes, though probably with higher numbers since my lane was out for like half of the first hour because it crashed and took forever to reboot.
 

Kas

Member
I went to 2 different places looking for the damn Mario 3DS, and they both told me that they sold out a good hour to hour and a half after they opened.

I got it after a bro helped me out at Best Buy. The other employees didn't even know you could get them anymore.

I got so fucking lucky
 

trixx

Member
I don't know if there was a low stock for xbox ones. But the blue one with halo 5 sold out quick at best buy. All the white and blue controller xbox one controllers that were on sale were out as well. (Canada).

xbox one bundles are quite nice this holiday

New 3ds are gone as well
 

Kacho

Member
Went to Target to pick up some Christmas lights around noon and saw a ton of Uncharted PS4s and a decent amount of Xbox Ones. Checked various stores websites and there seems to be plenty of stock for everything.

Just checked again and the BF1 Xbox One bundle is limited in a few stores. Everything else is available.
 

Kyrios

Member
I didn't go out, but my father said there were plenty of PS4 and Xboxes when he went to Target and Best Buy this afternoon.

He asked a Best Buy employee if they had any NES Minis as a joke and the guy burst out laughing lol
 

kvothe

Member
Just found out like an hour ago that Target apparently was selling Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition for $8. I went to my nearby Target (9:30pm on Black Friday) and they still had XB1 copies but not PS4. Had they advertised it at all, I would've maybe gone in earlier. Got Bloodborne for $5 at least (with $10 off coupon).

Didn't see any stacks of consoles remaining around anywhere, but they could've just restocked them in the back by this time.
 
The local Walmart was a mess with none of the usual fare of sales bins for films and games. Items weren't tagged with their sales price. Seemed like the focus was just on the larger big ticket items/systems/end cap features.

The New 3DS was well understocked. The local Meijer sold out of their stock of 13 as soon as they allowed sales of them at 6am. The allowance of 2 per customer didn't help matters either. Other places were completely dry, likely facing similar situations or possible degradation of stock through online order fulfillment.

Krampus was sold out in many places, though that may have had more to do with that sku being abandoned by retailers for the garbage cover holiday edition at a markup.

On the hunt for an Xbox One S deal at Kohls enlightened me on how big a thing Kohls is for Black Friday. Then again, Kohls has some of the slowest checkout speeds in retail to where the lines may have moved through faster at a more efficient setting like Best Buy. The ticket system for the consoles was something I hadn't encountered before, which makes me wonder if they had a very limited stock.

Either way, XBO sold through there and other places were selling quite a number. Saw less PS4s in consumer hands, but the software was flying out a lot quicker compared to Xbox software. It wouldn't be surprising if the UHD playback on the XBOS is what is going to give a healthy boost with the 4K tv sales. The 500GB with Minecraft was the leader from my observations. Other than Kohls and Meijer, everyone had large stacks of consoles.

I didn't realize Barnes and Noble does a decent sale. Free coffee Friday morning, 30% off any item, lots of BOGO50%, half off decent selections...I'll be hopefully looking into that tomorrow as the sales last all weekend. FYI, there's also a 50% sale on Criterion Collection films. B&N is overpriced compared to other outlets, but 50% for CC is about as good as it gets outside of the odd Amazon Lightning Sale on a specific set.

Overall, I spent a lot more than I thought I would, and loved that places like Best Buy had early sales that allowed members to benefit from price matching and memberships before such things become locked out for the weekend. Hopefully next year sees a continuation and expansion on that.

One thing that will hopefully improve is some of the organization. Things seem a bit too loose and chaotic on the retail end due to things being spread across the week/weekend. There's also the issue with Nintendo and retailers severely underestimating stock. While the NES Classic situation may encourage sales for a good long while and set up for a possible followup, the n3DS situation seems devoid of any real benefit with Switch just around the corner.
 
In Canada.

I purchased the PlayStation 4 w/ Uncharted 4 bundle they had going for $329.99. I figured it was a great deal for the price. The PlayStation 4 Pro wasn't really doing anything for me, so I don't mind getting the cheaper system.

As far as retail musings. Both the Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 w/ Uncharted 4 bundle had sold out of stock at floor level. The BestBuy employee had to go up on this ladder to grab me one. Seemed like both had done very well! I didn't see the PS4 Pro anywhere. BestBuy seemed to be pushing the bundles they had on sale. I checked their website and the PS4 Pro was just regular price. Not much incentive to grab one with such a stark difference in price as well as no game bundled.
 

painey

Member
Pokemon X and Y was the big seller at my local Best Buy. Omega and Sapphire littered the aisles as people grabbed them thinking they were a different version.

Obviously the New $99 3DS was the hot console of this year.
 

Abdiel

Member
I totally forgot to go back to the NPD thread after I woke up... I had to go back and close the store again, heh.

So. Basically, our entire stock of the bundles at $249 are gone, and were gone, before the end of my first shift. That's across PS4 and XB1. Both systems did incredibly well. The higher priced bundles on the XB1 side also saw some movement, but being more expensive, that really wasn't the motivation. Likewise, the lack of any special incentives on the Pro meant most people weren't really looking for those on this specific shopping day, and so I saw very few of our Pro inventory move on this particular shopping day. I didn't really expect them to. Sony didn't really increase their shipment of Pro's in preparation for BF, so clearly, they didn't either.

However, both the XB1S and PS4 Slims got very large stock influx beforehand. I don't really know if I have time to really figure out how it balances out, because the XB1 shipment is balanced between multiple SKUs, and yes, they did include the various bundles, not just their cheap ones, so we do have stock left over.

Gotta give MS credit though, on better bundle management for their stock planning though. Last year was a graveyard of misplaced bundles that were still sitting around months later... They've done much better this year with tighter, more well planned bundles. Good job guys! Also tighter planning with how much inventory... though for the BF shipment, maybe a bit overstocked on the 1TB bundles, since those really aren't the motivators? Just musing.

I expect we'll have more PS4 Slims in shortly, maybe even before the end of the weekend, as our Sony rep was stating they've been monitoring the stock situation closely. They've been really good this whole generation with it, so I believe them on that.

------------------

I don't usually comment on the Wii U, like I don't comment on the Vita. It depresses me a bit, how completely these systems were rejected by the market. I love my Vita, and I know Nintendo fans love their Wii Us. I can't really say much in this regard, Nintendo didn't really give us a lot to work with on that front. And even on the 3DS front, we've had great interest due to Pokemon, but we got cleaned out of our entire stock even on the online front of a lot of our core systems almost immediately, so I feel like Nintendo was really tight fisted about their margins. At least they can be content knowing that what they gave us, we sold.

---------------

PSVR units - I've mused about this off and on, but I mean, they don't sit that long, and Black Friday wasn't really a special sale for them, so I don't think it would show up as any major push on our front. Sony seems content with the overall momentum and not trying to sacrifice margin on the hardware to accelerate it. It remains to be seen how their strategy will pan out. We don't get a lot at a time, and they have an extremely low return rate, so they seem to have excellent customer retention with the product.

---------------

As anyone can imagine, we sold a metric fuckton of games. Huge spread, across a myriad of titles, though what that will look like on NPD is anyone's guess, especially since Gamestop sees even more drastic variation.
 

kunonabi

Member
Yeah, everywhere around me was flush with xbones. I was surprised since 250$ for the XboneS sounds like a steal to me.

No nes classics or 3ds units around though.
 
I pulled off into a Big Lots parking lot for a second, to reply to a text message, and police rolled up in a van, and hopped out with assault rifles pointed at people I had just driven past.

I got out of there very fast.

Black Friday.
 

jimwhat

Member
This is the first year that I haven't seen a single BF fight video.

Dropped by some stores on Thanksgiving and they were pretty empty by 9PM
 
I was out at Best Buy and Target Thursday night, around midnight.

Walls and walls of PS4s... Xboxes... TVs..


Nintendo sections looked completely ransacked... especially the 3ds sections.
 

trixx

Member
In Canada.

I purchased the PlayStation 4 w/ Uncharted 4 bundle they had going for $329.99. I figured it was a great deal for the price. The PlayStation 4 Pro wasn't really doing anything for me, so I don't mind getting the cheaper system.

As far as retail musings. Both the Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 w/ Uncharted 4 bundle had sold out of stock at floor level. The BestBuy employee had to go up on this ladder to grab me one. Seemed like both had done very well! I didn't see the PS4 Pro anywhere. BestBuy seemed to be pushing the bundles they had on sale. I checked their website and the PS4 Pro was just regular price. Not much incentive to grab one with such a stark difference in price as well as no game bundled.

Honestly I would've went slim as well. 499 with no game is real tough to digest. Uncharted 4 slim bundle is good, they should've had like a CoD bundle as well; that would have sold like crazy.
 

Vice

Member
A couple Targets and a Best Buy had their Pokemon S/M displays cleared out. No 3DS units at any retailer I went to.

Lots of Uncharted PS4s. Very few BF1 Xbox Ones in sight. Plenty of VR stuff left. No Hatchimals in sight :(
 

inner-G

Banned
I went to Best Buy twice, after the early rush and later in the evening. It was steadily busy both times, lots of folk is getting games, phones and PCs. The TV and appliance departments were mostly dead. The dirt cheap movies looked like they got hit hard
 

cvxfreak

Member
Lots of interest in Apple, TVs, and videogames at the Best Buy and Target I visited. Plenty of Xbones and PS4s, while the 3DS and Classic NES were nowhere to be seen.
 

Stimpack

Member
Seemed like a dud this year. Playstation had some ok deals, but it wasn't a blowout. Aside from that I saw that MX300 750 GB for $100? That seemed decent.
 

Dimorphic

Member
Australia is picking up the Black Friday trend but nothing to the extent of what you guys get in the US.

Or Target / Big W (Walmart essentially) / EB Games / JB Hi Fi had some decent hardware and software sales.

There was a massive line up at Target for new release XB1/PS4 games going for 30-70% off pull price (RRP around $89 AUD) which was pretty cool.
 

RockmanBN

Member
Was waiting in line with my brother at gamestop. He wanted to pick uo some games with the credit he would pay me back for trading in my old new 3ds(haha). Last 3ds was on sale once he made it to the register. He didn't want to piss off the 20 people in line who also wanted a 3ds becausw he already got one online from them but wanted one sooner. He was nice to let it go for someone else but some of the people were very pissed that they couldn't get one.
 

MrBenchmark

Member
My local target was cleaned out of Xbox ones and 3ds and Xbox controllers games were picked over and no PSVR left.

They did have a full pallet of uncharted PS4 slims and 4 PS4 pros in the case. This was at 6pm Friday night I was there for prescription and eggs I do my shopping online really didn't want to be there don't like crowds.
 

Mokubba

Member
I totally forgot to go back to the NPD thread after I woke up... I had to go back and close the store again, heh.

So. Basically, our entire stock of the bundles at $249 are gone, and were gone, before the end of my first shift. That's across PS4 and XB1. Both systems did incredibly well. The higher priced bundles on the XB1 side also saw some movement, but being more expensive, that really wasn't the motivation. Likewise, the lack of any special incentives on the Pro meant most people weren't really looking for those on this specific shopping day, and so I saw very few of our Pro inventory move on this particular shopping day. I didn't really expect them to. Sony didn't really increase their shipment of Pro's in preparation for BF, so clearly, they didn't either.

However, both the XB1S and PS4 Slims got very large stock influx beforehand. I don't really know if I have time to really figure out how it balances out, because the XB1 shipment is balanced between multiple SKUs, and yes, they did include the various bundles, not just their cheap ones, so we do have stock left over.

Gotta give MS credit though, on better bundle management for their stock planning though. Last year was a graveyard of misplaced bundles that were still sitting around months later... They've done much better this year with tighter, more well planned bundles. Good job guys! Also tighter planning with how much inventory... though for the BF shipment, maybe a bit overstocked on the 1TB bundles, since those really aren't the motivators? Just musing.

I expect we'll have more PS4 Slims in shortly, maybe even before the end of the weekend, as our Sony rep was stating they've been monitoring the stock situation closely. They've been really good this whole generation with it, so I believe them on that.

------------------

I don't usually comment on the Wii U, like I don't comment on the Vita. It depresses me a bit, how completely these systems were rejected by the market. I love my Vita, and I know Nintendo fans love their Wii Us. I can't really say much in this regard, Nintendo didn't really give us a lot to work with on that front. And even on the 3DS front, we've had great interest due to Pokemon, but we got cleaned out of our entire stock even on the online front of a lot of our core systems almost immediately, so I feel like Nintendo was really tight fisted about their margins. At least they can be content knowing that what they gave us, we sold.

---------------

PSVR units - I've mused about this off and on, but I mean, they don't sit that long, and Black Friday wasn't really a special sale for them, so I don't think it would show up as any major push on our front. Sony seems content with the overall momentum and not trying to sacrifice margin on the hardware to accelerate it. It remains to be seen how their strategy will pan out. We don't get a lot at a time, and they have an extremely low return rate, so they seem to have excellent customer retention with the product.

---------------

As anyone can imagine, we sold a metric fuckton of games. Huge spread, across a myriad of titles, though what that will look like on NPD is anyone's guess, especially since Gamestop sees even more drastic variation.

Thanks as usual for the info Abdiel

Good to hear about PS VR too but I think they're being slightly conservative.
 
I totally forgot to go back to the NPD thread after I woke up... I had to go back and close the store again, heh.

So. Basically, our entire stock of the bundles at $249 are gone, and were gone, before the end of my first shift. That's across PS4 and XB1. Both systems did incredibly well. The higher priced bundles on the XB1 side also saw some movement, but being more expensive, that really wasn't the motivation. Likewise, the lack of any special incentives on the Pro meant most people weren't really looking for those on this specific shopping day, and so I saw very few of our Pro inventory move on this particular shopping day. I didn't really expect them to. Sony didn't really increase their shipment of Pro's in preparation for BF, so clearly, they didn't either.

However, both the XB1S and PS4 Slims got very large stock influx beforehand. I don't really know if I have time to really figure out how it balances out, because the XB1 shipment is balanced between multiple SKUs, and yes, they did include the various bundles, not just their cheap ones, so we do have stock left over.

Gotta give MS credit though, on better bundle management for their stock planning though. Last year was a graveyard of misplaced bundles that were still sitting around months later... They've done much better this year with tighter, more well planned bundles. Good job guys! Also tighter planning with how much inventory... though for the BF shipment, maybe a bit overstocked on the 1TB bundles, since those really aren't the motivators? Just musing.

I expect we'll have more PS4 Slims in shortly, maybe even before the end of the weekend, as our Sony rep was stating they've been monitoring the stock situation closely. They've been really good this whole generation with it, so I believe them on that.

------------------

I don't usually comment on the Wii U, like I don't comment on the Vita. It depresses me a bit, how completely these systems were rejected by the market. I love my Vita, and I know Nintendo fans love their Wii Us. I can't really say much in this regard, Nintendo didn't really give us a lot to work with on that front. And even on the 3DS front, we've had great interest due to Pokemon, but we got cleaned out of our entire stock even on the online front of a lot of our core systems almost immediately, so I feel like Nintendo was really tight fisted about their margins. At least they can be content knowing that what they gave us, we sold.

---------------

PSVR units - I've mused about this off and on, but I mean, they don't sit that long, and Black Friday wasn't really a special sale for them, so I don't think it would show up as any major push on our front. Sony seems content with the overall momentum and not trying to sacrifice margin on the hardware to accelerate it. It remains to be seen how their strategy will pan out. We don't get a lot at a time, and they have an extremely low return rate, so they seem to have excellent customer retention with the product.

---------------

As anyone can imagine, we sold a metric fuckton of games. Huge spread, across a myriad of titles, though what that will look like on NPD is anyone's guess, especially since Gamestop sees even more drastic variation.

thanks for the insight, bro. i thought you still were sleeping, kept refreshing that NPD thread lol

Pro offerings have been lackluster, i was looking out to buy one myself but i missed the biggest deal thinking BF or Cybermonday would do better than 350$ at amazon like 2-3 days ago

ebay deal is good but i got some cash i wanna use on amazon that at 350 + tax would still bring it 5$ cheaper than the price on ebay plus the security amazon gives to its prime members
 
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