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Analyst: Guitar Hero: World Tour Is Still Out Of Stock?
by Leigh Alexander
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December 2, 2008
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Fear not for Guitar Hero: World Tour? Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz says the title's still white-hot -- or would be, if consumers could find it on the shelves.
There've been conflicting messages from the industry and its analysts on whether band games might be on the wane. Compared to its predecessors, sales for Guitar Hero: World Tour generally raised some flags for retailers and analysts.
GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo recently told Gamasutra that the music genre appears "softer" than in previous years, and EEDAR's Jesse Divnich went so far as to call band games a passing "fad."
Taking a close look at online and brick-and-mortar store retail channels, though, Cowen Group's Creutz says that "demand for the title remains very high, particularly the full band kit version of the game."
Creutz agrees with GameStop's DeMatteo on the idea that, if the World Tour band kit isn't selling gangbusters, it's solely due to supply constraints and not demand.
"No online retailer had more than one SKU of the title in stock and resellers on Amazon.com continued to price the band kit anywhere from $20 to $85 above the $189 list price," says Creutz, for example.
"Supply of the full band kit version at all retail locations was very tight, with the title selling out quickly," Creutz concluded, after assessing stores from Amazon to Wal-Mart and GameStop. "This picture of high demand and tight supply remains consistent with our previous channel checks."
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I'll admit I haven't seen the full band version at all, though.