GameStop expects short supply of Kinect and Move during shopping season

By Stephany Nunneley

GameStop expects Kinect and Move to both be in short supply this holiday shopping season, due in part to the expanded audience the devices appeal to.

Speaking during a call to investors yesterday, executive VP Tony Bartel said expects the demand for Kinect and Move to be similar to the launch of Wii, with consumers stalking delivery trucks to stores and such. Bartel said he expects software to be in stock, guaranteed, during the holidays but he couldn’t promise the same when it came to hardware offerings, reports GI.biz.

“I think you are going to have the exact same thing with new controllers and with the Kinect Bundle that goes out,” said Bartel. “I think you are going to have consumers following the UPS truck to our stores to pick up that product as soon as they can find it. So, we are not only excited with the sale of Kinect and with Move, both of which are going to be in short supply during the holiday season, but we like the fact that they are bringing expanded audience to games.”

According to Bartel, Dance Central and Kinect Sports are the best-selling titles for Kinect at the moment, with two game offerings giving consumers a reason to pick up Kinect and an Xbox 360.

“We definitely do see new customers coming into our store and it is selling hardware as well, as you can see and then with the numbers with Xbox 360, an increase in October’s NPD numbers,” he said. “In terms of attaches, there’s a very high attach rate. In fact when you look at the top attaching games, in Kinect’s case where it is Kinect Sports as well as Dance Central, those are definitely the expanded audience type of games and those are attaching extremely well.”

Kinect is selling so well in stores and online, Xbox boss Don Mattrick’s said in a session at the Web 2.0 summit this week that anyone buying Kinect for Christmas should do so “by the end of this week.”