“Video-game retailer GameStop has decided to stop selling Microsoft’s Zune players at its stores due to what it sees as insufficient demand from customers,” Priya Ganapati reports for TheStreet.com
“The move is unlikely to affect GameStop, whose sales come almost completely from video games but it puts up another hurdle in Microsoft’s attempt to grow Zune sales,” Ganapati reports.
“‘We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated,’ said a GameStop spokesperson,” Ganapati reports.
“GameStop made the decision about a month ago,” Ganapati reports. “GameStop said it will sell Zune players online until it clears out its inventory.”
“GameStop has hundreds of stores across the country and losing that distribution channel could hurt Zune sales,” Ganapati reports.
MacDailyNews Note: GameStop has over 4,400 stores located throughout the United States and 15 countries.
“Microsoft has sold about 2 million Zunes since the device’s release in Nov. 2006,” Ganapati reports.
MacDailyNews Take: 2 million Zunes sold to actual customers or 2 million Zunes sold by Microsoft to retailers like GameStop (meaning: 2 million shipped) that are currently sitting on store shelves covered in dust? We strongly suspect the latter, since finding a Zune in the wild is even harder than finding a satisfied Vista sufferer. In case you were wondering, Apple has sold about 85 million iPods since Nov. 2006.
Full article here.
Is the charade finally beginning to end or did Yahoo-obsessed Balmy just forget to send GameStop last month’s Zune subsidy check?
Steve Ballmer is on a short list for a position in John McCain’s administration should he be elected President.
Ahahahahaha… oh well, maybe the ads that users will see will help them sell a billion of these.
“Is the charade finally beginning to end or did Yahoo-obsessed Balmy just forget to send GameStop last month’s Zune subsidy check?”
Hmmmmm how else can they sell that piece of ” I want to be an iPod, but I don’t know how” crap.
Wow great “reporting”
Poor Zunies. I guess they have to squirt themselves.
I have seen ONE Zune outside a store. My wife’s 12 year old cousin inadvertently bought one when he got his XBox. I played with it for a little bit. The only thing it had going for it was that it was not the brown model.
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Even he thinks it sucked, but I guess at 12 the mind is still pretty young to make good buying decisions.
Makes you wish there were business rules that forced companies to give details on every product they sell.
“GameStop has hundreds of stores across the country and losing that distribution channel could hurt Zune sales”
I think having a crappy product is going to hurt sales more.
@MDN:
It’s a little two-faced to question whether Microsoft’s sales claims are actual sales and not just shipped units, and not question Apple or any other manufacturer the same way. I also fail to see any support for your belief that the 2 million number is just shipped and sitting on store shelves.
MDN, lose the hardcore-fanboy attitude. I have no problem with appropriate bashing of MS or other companies (Apple included) where facts support it, but your take on this is completely without merit. I’m sure Apple sells iPods to retailers in much the same manner as Zunes are.
If you want to make a smart-ass comment, then simply do that and we can all have a good laugh. Don’t try to pass off your dig as factual.
A neighbor of mine bought a Zune for his 10 year old daughter. It was on sale for $70.
I live in Redmond and i know only 1 person who has a Zune… haha.
What if they came up with another DRM license to complement Zune & PlaysForSure & Vista? It’d have to be something catchy though like SquirtsForSure.
Redmond’s going to have trouble selling that ad space they were planning for those Zunes.
Buy an ad-spot on the Zunes and you don’t exactly buy many eyeballs. Steve Ballmer, Paul Thurrott, and that fat guy with the tattoos get to see them and that’s about it.
bizlaw,
A couple of points:
1. It is much harder to “hide” 85 million units in the channel than a paltry 2 million.
2. All of us here can actually easily find iPods in the hands of real people. Not so with Zune.
Thanks for playing.
Hey now, there *are* zunes out there in the wild, my sisters best friend has an aunt who knows a broker whose brothers friend is a zune owner.
For a little light relief — The most evil man in the universe calls the most evil company in the universe:
Fsck, I knew that thing my crazy bald asshole nephew gave me was a piece of shit.
(That’s why I secretly bought myself an iPod touch last year. Shhh!)
Bizlaw, most of us are really here to read MDN’s take, if you don’t like it then there are plenty of other news sites around
The Zune, it zucked!
The SPIFs stopped as MS started to looking at saving cash to buy Yahoo. Ballmer figured retailer would suck it up and do what MS wants them to do. GameStop will pay the wrath of Ballmer when MS cuts their Xbox allocations and their hot title shipments on new releases. Ballmer might even toss a chair at GameStop CEO. GameStop is after all the number one seller of the Zune.
Apple should approach GameStop about selling the iPods touch with game gift cards for the App Store.
@ Journo
“It is much harder to “hide” 85 million units in the channel than a paltry 2 million.”
Paltry, indeed. I wonder how many iPod Touches Apple has sold, and the Borg hasn’t even got anything advanced enough to compete with that.
AFAIK, Apple have sold something like 4 million iPhones and that’s a genuine figure — you can’t get one now even if you want one, because they’re out of stock.
The number of iPod Touches sold must run to similar figures.
SPLASH !!!
I don’t think there’s any question that the iPod touch has outsold the Zune at this point.
Memo sent to all Microsoft employees on a biannual basis:
DON’T FORGET: As an employee of Microsoft Corporation you are required to purchase ten (10) Zunes twice per year.
Will that be cash, check, or charge?
@chair-throwing, simian-like CEO
“For a little light relief — The most evil man in the universe calls the most evil company in the universe:”
I’m sure Gates phones Ballmer all the time
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