Indies applaud Gem support for Kinect

Independent retailers say they ultimately did not miss out when must-have Xbox 360 peripheral Kinect rolled out last week.

Key specialists have praised Gem and Microsoft for their handling of stock allocations.

Indie chain Grainger Games told MCV the launch of Kinect went exceptionally well, with in-store space dedicated to the device, strong pre-orders and high levels of stock.

We were very happy with our allocation,” said sales director Phil Moore.

We’ve been supported really well by both Microsoft and Gem.

We have been able to fulfil all pre-orders which means we have a lot of happy customers buying Kinect from Grainger.”

Kinect launched on Wednesday, November 10th and is supported by 19 titles from a range of publishers including Microsoft, Ubisoft, Sega, Konami and more.

Individual store managers said the support from both Gem and Microsoft aided product sell-through.

Grainger’s senior store manager at the Metro Centre Paul Caisley told MCV: It’s brilliant that we got enough stock to cover all pre-orders. I’ve had a great week and this Christmas will be fantastic.”

Michael Pearce, director of Yorkshire-based indie Game People added: There’s certainly a lot of interest and buzz around Kinect. Distribution has worked hard to get the stock in quickly as soon as it is available.”

Gem’s Darren Houghton, added: Microsoft have worked extremely hard to provide as much launch stock as possible for the UK market and have allocated this stock fairly across the UK retail base. Gem were provided with a sizeable allocation for our independent base and we also allocated this stock as fairly as possible.”