“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?
I get BizLaw’s point.
Usually I just ignore MDN when its in Super FanBoi mode (unless its really funny!). Just like most everybody will ignore what I just said. (Unless you find this funny, then you’re welcome)
HA HA HA. Microsoft should just quit. It’s almost as bad as the XBOX. Or Windows!
“Yes, I never saw one either”
Craig Ferguson on “The Late Show”
“We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated.”
lol, like skidmarks in your underwear have appeal.
“GameStop said it will sell Zune players online until it clears out its inventory.”
I sure hope they don’t have more than, you know, one or two of the Zune thingies in inventory, otherwise they could take a loo-o-ong time to clear out….
@bizlaw “MDN, lose the hardcore-fanboy attitude”
how, exactly, did you conclude that MDN was anything other than a hard-core Mac site?
Have you ever saw a Zune? I have saw many many iPods, iPhones (even in countries where the iPhone has not been officially released).
Also, I have see many people who has brought Apples’s OS original. But even that I know many more people who uses microsoft windows, none, absolutely none of the has brought the OS, they got it with the computer or they get it from a P2P sharing program.
By the way, did you pay for your windows copy or it came pre loaded in your computer?
Insufficient demand? Ha! The real story is there is insufficient supply. Microsoft can’t make these things fast enough and GameStop got tired of keeping the empty shelf space reserved for the blowout bestseller. In it’s place are used Gamecube games.
If you’re diligent in your search I’m sure you can find a Zune. I recommend getting up early on Sunday morning and getting in line with the rest of us at you local Best Buy or Circuit City. Hopeufully they won’t run out. Good Luck!
Your potential. Our passion.™
Think about this for a second…
Assume Microsoft is telling the truth about how many Zune’s have been sold (2,000,000). If GameStop was the ONLY retailer selling Zune’s they would sold less than one per day per store… 25.25 per store per month by my math counting back for 18 months.
That is amazingly pathetic even of Microsoft!!!
@bizlaw
I don’t think that MDN’s take is particularly unfair. Whether it is 2 million sold/shipped, Zune is a highly unprofitable product and has not been well received outside of a few “fanboy” sites. Moreover, a very significant percentage of Zunes appear to have been sold at cut rate prices (e.g., a 30GB Zune from Amazon for $90) to clear retailers unsold inventory. The All-Mighty Ballmer even admitted that Microsoft has failed to figure out how to make money from the Zune.
There is also a pattern of sales “deception” from Microsoft. Claims that Vista sales are going well ring particularly hollow. My own organization of 10,000 + employees is almost exclusively PC. We buy NEW PCs with Vista and our IT staff then erase and install an XP image (downgrade). But Microsoft claims (rightly or wrongly) both the Vista sale AND the XP license in their installed base. Hence each computer is viewed as 2 by Microsoft.
The problem with bizlaw’s complaint is that Apple is regularly reported as not publicly commenting on sales figures. The only time you find out is at their Qtrly Earnings Reports (which is why they have become such an ‘event’). Microsoft, on the other hand, is notorious for bragging about how many copies of Windows or Zunes they sold to any reporter that will listen, even when the reality (as MDN states) is that the products have been pumped into the sales channel. When we hear simultaneous reports from Foxconn that they’ve shipped 10 million iPhone and from Apple that they’ve sold 10 million iPhones, then bizlaw will have a case.
“Waiter, whatever Zune Tang is having, I’ll have it too. In fact, make it a double.”
Damn Zune Tang, you drink, eat, and poop the Microsoft KoolAid don’t you?
I’ve seen pictures my niece and nephew have shown me featuring friends, and spotted 2 zunes. So they each know 1 kid with one.
I have seen one zune in the “wild”-my coworker got it as a free giveaway.
It may be clunky with crappy buttons and a squircle-but it was free and does play music.
“Think about this for a second…
Assume Microsoft is telling the truth about how many Zune’s have been sold (2,000,000). If GameStop was the ONLY retailer selling Zune’s they would sold less than one per day per store… 25.25 per store per month by my math counting back for 18 months.”
lol! didn’t think of it like that. that truly is sad…..
MS must be feeling “the pinch” now. They couldn’t sell more Zunes even if they included a roll of toilet paper with each one.
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@ericdano
ZuneTang® is the resident tongue and cheek. Read his/her posts with that in mind and find the humor.
@bizlaw:
You are wrong on this one.
It has been widely documented by many news sources that Microsoft publicizes “units sold” as “units shipped to retailers”. This is one of Microsoft’s deceptive tactics that they use on a regular basis.
Microsoft is using similar deception with Vista “sales”.
…whereas when Apple reports quarterly earnings, they report revenue generated from iPods, Macs, etc. In other words, units sold, money received for them.
Two very different standards for reporting. MS does theirs, Apple their own. In the end, nobody still knows how many owners of Zune are there.
The truth usually comes out in the end.
No Squirt For Them.
“‘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.
What? It had even less appeal than a turd?
iPods have been around long enough that there is the secondary market to consider as well-even though apple doesn’t get any of that money, if you throw in the numbers of iPods that have been sold and then re-sold . . . staggering.
@Canada Mark
I agree with your Vista analysis. The SEC should really set in place some clear rules as to how a company can report a “unit sold” versus a “unit shipped”.
It would be fun to see 2,000,000 Zunes shipped and 1,000,000 Zunes actually sold.
“It would be fun to see 2,000,000 Zunes shipped and 1,000,000 Zunes actually sold.”
have you ever used one? gone into a store and tried one out?
if so,you would know that 1 million sold is likely still to high……
“what a hunk of junk!” -movie quote guy
“”GameStop made the decision about a month ago,” Ganapati reports”
and nobody noticed until today…..
@shen
Ya, I know I was being generous but I figured between the 12 Microsoft Executives who bought them for their kids (who then tossed ’em in the trash) and the Gates Foundation who bought 999,872 for distribution in third world countries like Canada (the only other place they are suppose to be available…), that it might come to a million.