So I used to work at Gamestop in 2008 (first day was the Gears 2 launch). Our used 360 section had this giant collection of Lego Indiana Jones/Kung Fu Panda copies. Having not had a 360 yet and planning to spend my first paycheck on one, for whatever reason, it didn't register to my why we had so many of those. And then I sold my first 360 console, and I was like "Oh."
Every 360 console we sold had Lego Indiana Jones/Kung Fu Panda packed in. And thus, we had some people rip open the box in the store after buying the console and trading it in immediately for like... 15 bucks. And they kept coming in. It was absurd. At some point we had to put a pile in the back room. Our drawer full of Used 360 discs, an entire row was dedicated to just these games. Nobody was buying them. They would never leave. They just wouldn't stop growing and spreading. At some point we had to send a giant-ass box of these off to one of the company's warehouses or whatever. I get shivers when I see these box arts.
Now I don't know if this counted towards NPD tracking, or if at some point someone realized there was an enormous stockpile of these games going nowhere, but it was the most "Oh god, the Wii is eating family sales like crazy and we have no family games to push" kind of move to make this the bundle for the holiday. Not like anything first party or that took advantage of the core features of the system. But no, instead it was "Uhhh I dunno, kids like this kinda shit, right? Take these!" Meanwhile Microsoft looked at Viva Pinata and B&K Nuts and Bolts and said "get back in your hole."
Meanwhile, stuff like Wii Sports stayed in regular rotation in peoples' Wii libraries for years. Or Mario Kart 8 being an undeniably obvious get for new Switch owners. And while AstroBot may not be sold separately on PS5, it's still one of the coolest showcases of the Dualsense, and is going to stay installed just so I can show it off to people holding the controller for the first time. And hell.. fucking Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. Or Super Mario World.
Which ones stuck out to you? Or... y'know... didn't?
Every 360 console we sold had Lego Indiana Jones/Kung Fu Panda packed in. And thus, we had some people rip open the box in the store after buying the console and trading it in immediately for like... 15 bucks. And they kept coming in. It was absurd. At some point we had to put a pile in the back room. Our drawer full of Used 360 discs, an entire row was dedicated to just these games. Nobody was buying them. They would never leave. They just wouldn't stop growing and spreading. At some point we had to send a giant-ass box of these off to one of the company's warehouses or whatever. I get shivers when I see these box arts.
Now I don't know if this counted towards NPD tracking, or if at some point someone realized there was an enormous stockpile of these games going nowhere, but it was the most "Oh god, the Wii is eating family sales like crazy and we have no family games to push" kind of move to make this the bundle for the holiday. Not like anything first party or that took advantage of the core features of the system. But no, instead it was "Uhhh I dunno, kids like this kinda shit, right? Take these!" Meanwhile Microsoft looked at Viva Pinata and B&K Nuts and Bolts and said "get back in your hole."
Meanwhile, stuff like Wii Sports stayed in regular rotation in peoples' Wii libraries for years. Or Mario Kart 8 being an undeniably obvious get for new Switch owners. And while AstroBot may not be sold separately on PS5, it's still one of the coolest showcases of the Dualsense, and is going to stay installed just so I can show it off to people holding the controller for the first time. And hell.. fucking Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. Or Super Mario World.
Which ones stuck out to you? Or... y'know... didn't?
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