Curious Jeff: DS Games At Retail

 
Just tried to find a copy of Dragon Quest 9 in my local games shop in the UK but no luck - plenty of Layton though and the pre-owned stuff usually has some weird stuff (they used to have a decent Advance, Classic and Color range but even that's disappeared). The prices of the games are really high and rarely discounted. Even secondhand, the Mario titles are almost full price years after their release. 
 
There are still loads more PSP titles on the shelves (games and movies) although rarely anyone buying them in my experience. 
 
Prefer to buy on the internet nowadays - at least you are guaranteed finding what you looking for. Just had delivered Columns Crowns + Chu Chu Rocket double pack for the Advance this afternoon!

My Best Buy put all their games in a huge ‘ape-cage’ at the front of the store.  You have to ask the clerk who calls the ‘gorilla wrangler’ to open this ape-cage to pull out your game.  This seemed to be ‘the lest attractive way’ to buy a game ever, so I had to ask why. 
   

The gorilla wrangler said they did it this way because their loss prevention department gave up.  All their games were being stolen, they couldn't figure out how many i(f not all) employees were in on it, and their legitimate sales where people brought things to the counter was low.  In other words the theft of games was so huge they figured EVERYONE was in on so who do you fire...everyone?...and their legitimate sales so low this ape-cage system wasn't detracting that much from sales.  


So yeah, your experience says more about that Best Buy then DS. 

" I just went to my local Gamestop to pick up 999 for the DS. They didn't have it in stock but mentioned that lots of people had been asking for it. They also said that the publisher had been "D-listed", whatever that means. So I picked up Picross 3D! "

As far as best buys go ive seen your example time and time again. As for other major retailers i generally see what a store should normally do  for their products in terms of organization and stock. Other than best buy its been fine

I work in an Australian EB Games (which is owned by gamestop), Ghost Trick was/is a SO title. which means special order - if a customer wanted it, they had to pre-order it and they could order a copy from  up to 2 weeks after release. Stores would only be sent x amount of copies to cover x amount of orders. I imagine that because the game title didn't contain the word Mario or Pokemon, that they decided to only give it the bare minimum of attention - I had only heard of this game through GiantBomb and when a customer asked for it I didnt associate the title they were asking for with this game, but placed their order for it anyway - only just made the connection now. 
 
EB Games uses the same POS system as gamestop and 'D-Status'd' means that the supplier cannot provide any more additional copies of the game. 
 
Whether it was the distributer or the EB Games/Gamestops buyers (the people who decide how many units the company will buy) I have no idea.

I just went to my local Gamestop to pick up 999 for the DS. They didn't have it in stock but mentioned that lots of people had been asking for it. They also said that the publisher had been "D-listed", whatever that means. So I picked up Picross 3D!

The Best Buy closest to me has a fully-stocked, well-organized aisle full of DS games, peripherals, etc. I picked up DQIX there for half price and they'll have the odd sale here or there that will make me buy a game there over the 4 Gamestops in the 3 mile radius. However, the next closest one a couple cities away? Most of their stock is shovelware relegated to a giant cardboard bin with a sale price slapped on. Some of those go as low as like 10 USD. It all depends on the store, really.

In the UK it seems like the superstores like ASDA (wal-mart) only really stock the AAA first party titles and then about 20 shovel ware games. I decided to find a copy of picross 3D after hearing about it during game of the year and had to resort to eBay.

This has happened to me before on big releases as well. Sometimes they're just like we don't even have that in our system.

Hmm...I haven't been interested in a DS game in a while so I haven't really check Best Buy's selection.

Best buy is never a good place to go if your not getting MW or Halo or something along those lines, our two Game stops (in the same mall no less XP) carry LOADS of DS games and I've never had to much of an issue finding what I want unless it's rare, Devil survivor comes to mind, as does 999 (which i lucked out on finding brand new XD)

I remember the day I bought my DS, the old grey one. I traveled to the next bigger city around my hometown together with a friend and we had to run from the train station to the store in order to make it in time before it closes. We each bought a copy of Mario 64 DS. I played the shit out of that game until I finally had all stars. I also played a little WarioWare which my older brother had bought... and that's about as far as my Nintendo DS experience goes.  
Oh and recently I used my DS to keep my bedroom window open but it fell on the ground and one of the hinges broke.

I got my Ghost Trick at my local Wal-Mart, I think all of the retailers here had it though. Getting Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors however was a different story. For 999, 4 out of 5 major videogame distributors in my town did not have it. I had to lug myself all the way to the end of town to an EB Games who luckily had one single copy.

Our Gamestops are pretty cool about DS games, but to be honest, I've never really gone to Best Buy for games. I think they just are too focused on other electronics. Or too spread out to really care about the games. After all, it is a store that sells high end TVs and computers and such.
 
Oh and Picross 3D is da best.

Portability's popularity will never die, and there are still some nice releases for the DS too (Like GT.). It isn't doing as well as it was before, but like @OKane3 said, it's been around for a while. As far as what the 3DS will do to the DS, I don't really know. If it's as accessible/versatile as the DS was and developers put out some innovative stuff with the new specs, then I'm pretty sure there'll be a gradual shift to a 3DS majority. The 3D capability makes an interesting investment for future titles, and backwards compatibility is a plus. If things go this way, that's the only way I can see a modern DS replacement actually replacing the regular old DS.
 
I usually go to Best Buy, and unfortunately, I'm not super impressed with them either. It's hit or miss; sometimes there's a general apathy for maintaining the floor, stocks, etc. and the staff have no interest in you, and sometimes the service is just great. I usually use eBay or Amazon, the former for released titles that I can snipe at a good price and the latter for future games. I don't shop at Gamestop anymore though.

Wow that sounds like a shitty Best Buy.. the one by my house is just as bad.. Can't we just order all videogames directly from the developers in this day and age? More digital downloads please...

I recently got ghost trick from a local gamestop, but i had to jump through a few hoops since the guy at the counter didn't even know it was out (I asked him to look since it should have been out, and only then did he find it). Other than that, the store is fine with ds games, though I get the feeling the ds section should be larger.

Yes, Capcom is major publisher but wasn't the original Phoenix Wright similar that it had a low supply and it was hard to find soon after its release?

" @Jonnyflash80 said:

" @FiestaUnicorn said:

" Did you ever think that, just maybe, it's none of your business? "

How is it none of his business if he is a paying customer? "

I was joking. "

My local Best Buy keeps its DS section fairly tidy; I think they just have to work with what they have. The DS has some great stand-out titles -- I do not regret owning one -- but it's plagued by the overabundance of games tailored to parents looking to pick up something on-the-cheap for their kids because they don't know any better.

I've touched my psp much more in the past year compared to my DS. I think it's time to move on. Same for psp as well though.

I just got a DS late last year, even after the 3DS was announced. I've got a huge list of games to check out.
 
However, most of them are more than a few years old, and therefore not at Gamestop or Best Buy. Which is why I'm just picking them up on Amazon for like $10.

" @FiestaUnicorn said:

" Did you ever think that, just maybe, it's none of your business? "

How is it none of his business if he is a paying customer? "

I work at a Kmart in the Audio/Visual section where games are sold and the DS is by far the highest selling platform in terms of both games and consoles. But the thing that really bums me out is shovel-ware. I am talking about games that cost $15-$25 that are not always aimed at children, but aimed at the parents buying for their children. Parents don't see the difference in quality between Mario Kart which costs $60 and some shovel-ware piece of shit racing game that costs $15.  The kids who are playing these games do though.  
In terms of sales, I'd say the ratio of real games to shovel-ware is 1:5 if not higher. This sucks because there are kids out there who like video games, but are given garbage. Souring their tastes, making them loose interest in games all together. Nintendo really needs to do something about this problem because it is just as bad on the Wii. I think that shovel-ware will eventually kill this generation of Nintendo platforms because people will start to think that all games suck as much as these shitty $15 games. 

I head over to my local Frys Electronics, they tend to always get their games in stock when they're release (even the obscure niche titles)... most of the time.
 
When it's not Frys, then it's Amazon and I'll only head into a Gamestop if there's some specific sale price on a game that isn't on sale anywhere else, which isn't often.

" Did you ever think that, just maybe, it's none of your business? "

Finland has always treated the DS like shit. The system has only 6% market share here and games are overpriced with a permanent price-tag of 40-50€. That means every DS gamer here imports or goes for the worse option that starts with the letter P.  
 
I'm still pretty optimistic about the last couple of years of DS. Sure I'm pretty hyped about 3DS, but I just recently got DQIX and Super Scribblenauts and I'm psyched about Ghost Trick. And even if there will be no major DS releases at some point, there will always be a huge library of great games to pick up that you might've missed.

The 3DS has backward compatibility so you don't have to worry if they stop manufacturing DS hardware and the DS will die pretty quick because most of us will succumb to the 3D novelty or the great games (MGS Snake Eater 3D, SMT:Devil Survivor 3DS, LOZ: Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil, Paper Mario).

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The DS section at the Hastings I work at is somewhat meager compared to the rest, but it's not horrible.  We keep it organized better than Best Buy does, apparently.

The DS sections are always nothing but shovelware. Walmart, Target, Best Buy, GameStop, etc. They've all been that way in my area.

My DS hasn't been touched for aeons. I just can't sift through the shovelware to find something good. 
 
Every store in my area is chock full of DS/Wii shovelware. If Nintendo is not careful, their name will be soiled just for that reason.

The DS is doing ok i think, not as good as it has been but hey its an aging system. as for stores the closest one to me is a gamestop and the DS section is actually relatively pristine. the games are all in order, new releases get turned out so you can see the boxart, and some get a cardboard cut out. the grain of salt there is that i live in one of the most heavily concentrated school districts in my state and probably on the east coast if you discount NYC. so they've got good reason to cater to the kiddies.

Best Buy, Costco, Wal-Mart, Target... it's the same at pretty much every major electronics and department store, with the noticeable exception of Fry's Electronics.
 
These days I just order from Amazon. Their prices are usually below MSRP (even if only slightly), I get free 2-day shipping with Amazon Student Prime, and best of all no sales tax! Which is definitely going to increase in California.

Glad you wrote this up, I had the same exact problem with this game and also 999. Ended up having to order them online.

" I remember how they said the SNES wouldn't be abandoned for the N64 right away. And what a bunch of crap that turned out to be ... "

The DS has sort of been around for a long while now, it kinda feels natural for me to see 
it abdicate its place to the 3DS.. if that'll even happen, hell it might out-live the 3DS.

I went to my local Gamestop yesterday to find out they didn't have any in stock either.  I was really surprised since they usually had a lot of weird games in-stock but not this Capcom game.

Psh, just use Amazon. .99 cent release day delivery too for when you guys need it in time for a deadline.
 
Best Buy and other retail stores kinda suck.

Here in MD everything looks fine. But I generally don't buy at retail anymore either. 

Jeff, this has BEEN true. Most B&M DS racks are erraticly stocked, ~40% evergreen titles (Nintendo mostly), ~40% party/casual/kids/shovelware, and ~20% smaller publisher/lower key/niche titles, seemingly shipped in at random and VERY spotty.  Went to pick up SMT: Strange Journey last year, and it also was not in the stores database, and the only RPGs outside of one DQ rerelease and Nintendo was  Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes and Infinite Space. Gamespot has long been a situation of pre-order, show up day 1, or go home empty-handed for anything outside that 80%.
 
I also highly suspect that 20% will shrink even faster year. Over/under on reliably finding 
http://www.giantbomb.com/radiant-historia/61-32194/ a week after launch at retail.

People still buy at retail? 
 
Seriously, why would anyone ever go retail these days? You're letting the shovelware win! The only games they have in stores these days are the shit ones that no one would buy if they didn't have a four-year old hanging on their sleeve shrieking like a pterodactyl. Just buy Ghost Trick online and be done with it. 

I think its got less to do with the impending 3DS and more about the sheer volume of software available for the DS. There are SO many games for the system that it wouldnt make much sense to stock every new release that comes out, especially as the majority of people who own a DS arent the type of people that would know about the title that you described. 
 
Plus im not sure about the status of Best Buy, im assuming its a supermarket? In the UK most supermarkets only stock popular chart games and little else. 
 
Its hard for a title such as that to get attention when the vast majority of DS owners are only interested in the games that either came with the system or have huge MARIO or similar names on the box.

Best Buy has always been a complete mess with all of their video games in my area. It's a complete mess and several of those games that look like they'd be easy to steal usually are in fact already stolen. As far as Ghost Trick goes I ran into the same problem here. And the same problem when Picross 3D, Miles Edgeworth and the second Professor Layton came out. Not a single Best Buy had it in their system in my area (southern California). Which is why I don't shop there anymore. 
  
And currently working at a Gamestop I can tell you the DS has been incredibly grim at our shop. The only thing that has come out has been utter garbage over the past 7 months, with only a mutated handful of actually decent titles sprinkled sparingly throughout.  
 
When I first started working there I would take down all the Petz and Littliest Pet Shop and Cooking Marmar down in favor for the lesser known great games on the system. But now there aren't enough of those games to fill the shelving space so up go the Dora games, the imagine: xxxxxxxx,  the Busy Scissors, and of course the Petz: Dolphinz, Hamsterz, Catz and Dogz.

I remember how they said the SNES wouldn't be abandoned for the N64 right away. And what a bunch of crap that turned out to be ...

Yeah, searched every retailer in the area for copies of Ghost Trick and 999. No luck whatsoever. Even on the cusp of a new system release, the DS is still kicking, it's pretty rad, but I<ll still get a 3DS.

They have Ghost Trick at my semi-local Gamestop as of yesterday.  Was thinking of picking it up but at its current price decided on Skate 3 instead for now.  Will probably wait for a price drop on Ghost Trick.

To be honest i don't buy games in stores all that much any more even dedicated gaming ones so can't really say how things are for the DS in them, i prefer online where i can shop around and find the best deal, I managed to get my copy of ghost trick in the UK online from shopto with out a problem.