Top stocking fillers
With analysts predicting a monster Christmas for hardware andsoftware, retailers are being offered a bewildering choice of products.CRN sifts through the chaff and finds a healthy amount of wheat.
When it comes to PC CD-ROM games, VIE's follow-up to the all-conquering Command & Conquer, looks like being a sure-fire winner for retailers.
With 200,000 "Command heads" in the UK gagging for Red Alert, the first day ship looks like making VIE's 100,000 target. But the sell-through strength of this style of game (the original still makes regular appearances in the top 20 over a year since it was first released) means there is little chance of being left with unwanted stock. The publisher is putting its biggest marketing spend to date behind this game, with cinema, billboard and radio support.
Watch out for EA's FIFA 97 on all formats. There may be rumours that the game bears an uncanny resemblance to its predecessor, but the title's seasonal success has become a retail tradition. Improved commentary and a strong licence, combined with EA's pan-European u1.5 million marketing spend, including TV advertising on Channel 4 and Sky, is likely to keep the cash tills ringing. All format release date is 29 November.
The People Who Know have also pointed to VIE's 3D combat game, Terminator SkyNet, as a possible outsider. Accounting for the game's surprise popularity, product manager Rosemary Dalton points to its "eight multi-player capability from only one copy" feature. But there are doubts surrounding the reliability of its release date. The official company line is it will appear at the end of November, but sources close to VIE suggest it isn't 100% positive about the game arriving in time for Christmas.
Multimedia products
Microsoft's key products need little introduction. While buyers have raised an eyebrow or two at the software giant's first games offerings, it still offers four guaranteed footfall generators (as long as discounting doesn't get out of control): Encarta 97, Flight Sim 6, Cinemania 97, and Autoroute Express. Although Microsoft likes to keep its branding separate from Dreamworks Interactive (which it jointly owns with Dreamworks SKG), the newly-launched company's biggest title, The Neverhood, looks like being an obvious Christmas favourite despite mediocre reviews. It launches 7 November at u49.95.
Spielberg Director's Chair is Random House's first serious foray into adult digital entertainment. Starring Quentin Tarantino and Jennifer Aniston from Friends, the player rises through levels from camera-trembling novice to the hottest property in Hollywood, with the help of Spielberg.
The title includes 66 minutes of original film footage and is on the shelves now.
Quirky PC products
With a u19.99 price point, a recommended age range of six to 100 years, BBC Multimedia's Wallace & Gromit Fun Pack is tipped to be one of the most popular impulse stocking fillers. Mastermind, which invites you to "put yourself in the spotlight with Britain's toughest quiz"
is also getting a rather tentative thumbs-up from buyers. Last month the company started brand advertising in the national broadsheets with inserts trumpeting the Beeb's arrival on the multimedia stage. Brand marketing has given way to product focus with the banner "don't just sit there, be part of the action." Wallace and Gromit (in their digital CD-ROM carnation) made an appearance on last Saturday's Live and Kicking, while the interactive version of Mastermind was trailed on the TV show's grand final last Monday.
This month one million Radio Times readers get carpet bombed through an insert with the "don't just sit there" message. Offering two multi-level games, screen savers and a trivia quiz, the Wallace & Gromit Fun Pack looks like being the BBC's strongest contender.
Other off-the-wall possibles mentioned on the computer retail grapevine are Hasbro's board game conversions, Battleships and Risk. As one senior buyer commented: "People buy weird things at Christmas."
Creatures from Warner Interactive Entertainment has also attracted much attention from the "quirky sells at Christmas" brigade. The company prefers to call it a program rather than a game. Buy some eggs, watch them hatch, nurture them and let them grow. Creatures launches 11 November.
Sega Saturn
What can Sega do in a situation where kids are deciding whether to have a Playstation or a bike for Christmas rather than a Saturn or a Playstation?
There are a large number of current and impending releases which are all high quality according to serious gamers but the mood from retailers and game fans is that Sega needs to get behind them a little more.
Fans of Nights believe it has got the potential to change gaming for good. Sega put adverts for Nights on TV, which ran from September to early October, but sales are generously described as steady rather than dynamite.
Yet word of mouth could move units in the Christmas run-up. The Nights controller pack gives the consumer a little extra for u59.99 but the critics thinks it looks like you're buying a controller rather than a game.
Worldwide Soccer '97 looks great and is being touted as the best console football game ever. The small-screen ads followed those of Nights and Sega also added local radio advertising to the mix which ran until 19 October. London, Bristol, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham all benefited from the promotion.
November beat 'em up release Fighting Vipers is soaking up top flight magazine reviews - 94% in Saturn magazine, 94% in Mean Machines, 5/5 in Computers & Video Games, and 8/10 in Edge. It is an AM2 coin-op conversion from the people who brought you Virtua Fighter and Virtua Cop.
Virtual On is another beat 'em up exciting the loyal Saturn users. This is expected late November or early December and went down a storm in Japan where they also benefited from a special joystick. The plot is for duelling androids to duff each other up.
Sony Playstation
Playstation titles are polarising into monster hits and the serious also-rans. The big games are likely to be the ones you're already selling.
Platformer Crash Bandicoot is the game Sony and Centresoft hope will broaden the Playstation market and drag in some younger players. Sony sees the game as a showcase for the Playstation and has run two ads in the games press, a demo has been cover mounted on Playstation magazine and a promotion is running with Domino's Pizza. The 3D title's expected early November.
Tekken II and F1 are expected to keep selling well up to Christmas and beyond. In its first week Sony managed to ship 12,000 packs of Tekken II. The same week top selling F1 held its own with sales of 8,000 despite having been out for a few weeks.
David Neal, sales director of Centresoft, said: "You've got to go back four or five years for the last time the industry did numbers like these."
F1 could also get a boost when the promised steering wheel accessory comes out. And as memory cards are selling 1:1 with the Playstation that's another Sony essential that should be stocked at Christmas.
EA's Die Hard trilogy has already been given the thumbs up from retail.
HMV Level One shop floor section leader Lloyd Gee La Pierre said: "Normally film licences never work but I was well impressed this time. I've read all the good reviews and having seen the game I think it's worth every single mark." Playstation Plus gave it 92%, Gamesmaster gave it 93% and PSX Pro awarded it 9/10. EA plans a pan-European TV campaign with a budget of u400,000, a national press presence, and poster campaign
Eidos' Tomb Raider featuring the aggressive and sexy Lara Croft is also tipped for the top by those in the know. Other titles expected to sell well are Virgin's Resident Evil though it's been out for a while, Destruction Derby 2 and Wipeout 2097.
PC Hardware
The British public is expected to buy more PCs in the run up to this Christmas than ever before. New high street outlets are springing up to cater for the demand and mail-order vendors are expecting a deluge as well.
But none of the big brand names are indulging in mega advertising campaigns this autumn, believing they will sell as many machines as they can supply without spending millions on TV airtime.
This year smaller budgets will be spent tactically on PR, sponsorship, regional advertising and instore activity - smart bombs compared to the thermonuclear devices of previous Christmases.
"It was pure naivete," says Con Mallon, AST marketing manager. "People dusted down their business-to-business campaigns for consumers." Mallon is putting the majority of his Q4 consumer marketing budget into co-operative advertising with the stores.
"We want to get a response from advertising - and a sale," says Mallon.
"And the most effective way to do that is to drive footfall in the stores and get the retailers to explain the specific offering."
This approach makes life easier for the PC manufacturer willing to trust the retailer's local knowledge and his ability to switch promotions on and off as he sees fit. The co-operative marketing done with retailers will be backed up by AST's below-the-line campaign, the details of which aren't available yet. Last month, AST reflected current thinking about segmentation in the consumer market with its latest Advantage PCs. Two machines from the five-strong line-up are aimed at gamers and come with built-in 3D graphics, Wingman joystick and DSVD (digital simultaneous voice and data) modem. Mallon predicts his best seller this Christmas will probably be the gamer's 7303 model based on a 133MHz Pentium, which weighs in at u1,799 RRP.
IBM has had various stabs at repeating its business sector success in the consumer arena. "We've gone wrong in the past by doing lots of conventional above-the-line advertising," says Larry Smith, IBM consumer division manager.
"I'm taking much of the money and putting it below the line." This roughly translates as out of the ad agency's pocket and into the retailer's, because Smith's mission is to "win the hearts and minds of the retail sales people."
According to IBM's research, an average customer looks at PCs in six outlets before buying. Smith's aim is to put IBM machines in four of those six outlets. But he doesn't intend to expand IBM's retail presence by offering tempting short-term deals - one of the company's USPs is longevity.
Nor will Smith achieve presence by stuffing retailers; his aim is to balance supply across the channel by trickling it in at a rate the store is happy with.
"If I don't have the product on the shelf at the right time, I've lost the sale to someone else," says Smith. "But we're not going to stuff the channel with quantities of stock and then at the end of the quarter try to get our figures up." He doesn't want retailers to carry more than 45 days of inventory and price protects distributors for 30 days only.
The Aptiva PC range is not dissimilar to its big brand competitors, stretching from u1,399 to u2,749. IBM's built-in Mwave 3D video technology means the PC's Pentium chip is relieved of video processing and can concentrate on other computing aspects such as audio. The company expects its top-seller this quarter to be the model 354, a u1,499 P120 multimedia PC with 12Mb memory, 1.2Gb hard drive and Mwave video technology.
There are new Aptiva models on the way, but the UK will have to wait until next year for them.
A couple of years ago Compaq stuck its neck out and spent the big marketing bucks on a TV campaign which firmly planted in the minds of the consumer the benefits of having a multimedia PC at home. In this respect, Compaq is credited with doing its competitors a favour, especially as it ran short of supply in November.
So this year there will be no consumer advertising campaign, although there will be one aimed at small businesses and a consumer drive next year. Marketing money is being spent on below-the-line activities, such as sponsoring leaflets for the Children's Head Injury Trust, a mousemat design competition with the Scouts and donating machines to children's hospitals and old people's centres. The company had its Jargon Police at the Home PC Show in the NEC last week, nicking people for reckless use of computer jargon.
Compaq was the first company to introduce a variety of PCs that reflected segmentation in the consumer market, bringing to the UK three of the seven latest Presario ranges in August, with the rest to follow next year.
Hamish Haynes, Compaq consumer marketing manager, expects his company's biggest seller to be the entry-level family PC. "Lots of people will buy their first PC this Christmas and without doubt the biggest sector is the family," says Haynes.
So which PC makers will be celebrating big sales come Christmas Day?
"On price, value and presence in the market, Packard Bell is sure to sell well again this Christmas, but its machines lack the feel of the latest offerings from the likes of Compaq and Hewlett Packard, which not only look good but include a lot of bells and whistles appealing to consumers at a more emotional level," says Herve Jodogne, retail analyst at Context.
"Acer and AST are very much there on value for money. Optimism is high, with lots of volume this season expected between u1,600 and u2,000."