New Titles Drive Strong Video Game Sales

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The release of two new hit games has boosted U.S. video game sales in the first weeks of the new year, traditionally a slack time after the year-end boom season, according to a brokerage survey released on Wednesday.

The signs of strong demand come after a record year in which U.S. video games and consoles reached a record $9.4 billion, spurred by the launch of three new game machines.

Those game consoles, which had been sold out at many retailers late last year, are now in stock at more locations, according to the Goldman Sachs Gaming Software Survey.

Only 51 percent of retailers reported being sold out of Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s GameCube and 38 percent out of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox, the survey said.

Both the GameCube and Xbox launched in mid-November. At the last survey, in mid-December, 77 percent of retailers were sold out of Xbox and 69 percent were out of GameCube.

The only console in increasing short supply was Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2, with 13 percent of retailers out of stock in the new survey, up from 11 percent at the last one.

Sony sold more than 8 million PS2s from its Nov. 2000 through Dec. 31, while Microsoft says it sold 1.5 million Xboxes through year-end, and Nintendo says it sold roughly the same as Microsoft through December.

Goldman Sachs said anticipation for games like Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.'s "State of Emergency," which takes place during an urban riot, and THQ Inc.'s "WWF Raw," a wrestling game, had helped overall sales to be "on target or slightly ahead of expectations."

The survey said that one retailer sold 100 copies of "WWF Raw," an exclusive Xbox title, within days of its launch last week, while another said they sold 80 copies the first day. The brokerage also said retailers were near-unanimous in calling "Raw" a better game than THQ's "WWF Smackdown" for PS2.

Another retailer told the brokerage she had already sold out her 80 copies of "State of Emergency," which launched last week.

Goldman also said many retailers consider the game a natural follow-on to Take-Two's "Grand Theft Auto 3," another violent game that was the best-selling title of 2001.

The brokerage surveyed 62 retailers in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Salt Lake City and San Francisco between Feb. 12 and Feb. 15. Among those surveyed were Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Best Buy Co. Inc.