"Cyber Monday" Good For Games Industry

What follows Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest U.S. holiday shopping days of the year? Cyber Monday, apparently, the day on which online retailers start receiving the bulk of their holiday orders. According to releases from several different sources, 2007's Cyber Monday has seen significant growth. According to eBay, which also runs the PayPal online payment service and Shopping.com, PayPal payments on Cyber Monday shot up 33% this year as compared to last. Meanwhile, Shopping.com's traffic to merchants increased 28% from 2006, with traffic to merchants over the Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend period up 30% year on year. EBay is also predicting a spike for "Green Monday", the second Monday in December, which has so far proven to be a busier time for online retailing. The only video game product which eBay specifically called out was Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the Xbox 360, which sells on the site for an average price of $75. The MSRP for the game is $99.99. However, according to PriceGrabber.com, the bestselling Cyber Monday product across all categories was the Nintendo Wii console. Guitar Hero III for 360 also made its top 10 list, which was otherwise dominated by consumer electronics products. Meanwhile, AuctionSHARK, an aggregation site that trawls online retailers and auctions has revealed that "Nintendo Wii" was the most popular search term during Cyber Monday. Guitar Hero III on 360 and two Sony products, PSP and PS3, also made its top 15 list.