Separated at Birth: IA and Kotaku

I have long enjoyed reading the gaming site Kotaku, both for the posts themselves and for the comment threads. It is a heavily traveled site that both creates and links to excellent content and provides a forum for those in the gaming world (gamers, investors, developers, etc.) to vent their spleens. And vent they do.

Kotaku frequently injects their posts with a healthy degree of cynicism and sarcasm, and today was no different. It just so happens that today they picked on one of my favorite targets - sell-side analysts - so I felt compelled to share this with you:

Analysts Conduct Intensive Research, Can’t Find GHII Or Wii On Shelf

Oh good. Further proof that “industry analysts” have the
most pointless jobs in the industry. A.G. Edwards have conducted a survey for investors that concludes it’s very difficult to find Guitar Hero II and Wiis on store shelves. You. Don’t. Say.

Surveying 100 stores in the US, only one had a copy of GHII, and none had a Wii in stock. Every single store did have both 360s and PS3s in stock, so David, their supply can’t be that constrained.

Sadly for investors, no information was provided as to how many copies of BMX XXX were in-stock, though preliminary estimates indicate it too is quite difficult to find.

Luke Plunkett

And Luke, in true wise-ass blogger form (which I happen to love), references an earlier post, where the “David” mentioned above is David Karraker of Sony Computer Entertainment. David was defending their stocking levels (and, in fact, called them “nowhere near an “in-stock” position,” implying that PS3 inventory levels are too low) in the prior post, to which Luke connects the recent survey results and basically says “Good explanation, David. Too bad those PS3s are sitting on the shelves while the Wiis are nowhere to be found.” This is both good substance and a funny, enjoyable read, two of the keys of successful and impactful blogging IMHO. Keep up the good work, Luke and Kotaku. You’re striking the right chord - at least with me.

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