Guitar Hero World Tour has been a success for Activision, but it may be such a success that they can’t keep the product on store shelves. In an interview with Gamasutra, Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz said short supply — not a lack of demand — is to blame if the game doesn’t meet sales expectations.
Previously, Gamestop CEO Dan DeMatteo and EEDAR (Electronic Entertainment Design and Research) analyst Jesse Divnich had called out the band-game genre as “softer” than previous years and a “passing fad” respectively. Still, it appears that retailers are having a hard time stocking the new Guitar Hero–at least the version of the game with instruments bundled together with the software inside the box.
Aside from Black Friday stockpiles, there are reports of the game being hard to find at many retailers. Amazon is only offering the Wii version of the band kit through resellers at the moment, and Gamestop has the same product on backorder.
Activision has not said anything on the matter, and this is all the talk of analysts and retailers (the latter, at least, know what they’re talking about from their own hard numbers). But the real test of supply and demand may come from resellers, and at this writing they’re making some coin. You can see on Amazon’s page how the starting resale price is higher than retail, with new in box versions selling for over $230.
If only the analysts had told us this before launch. We could’ve been rich.
