Best Buy CEO: 'Consumers Are Out Spending Again'

After long summer months of NPD declines, the video game industry is looking to the holiday season for a return to growth, and a shot at coming out ahead for 2009. Hardware price cuts are in place and most publishers have saved their highest-profile titles for the period -- but will the consumers come? CEO Brian Dunn of retailer Best Buy believes so. "Consumers are back out spending again," he told outlets like MarketWatch at a media conference in New York. Last season, and throughout the challenging economic period, cautious retailers placed lower-than-usual orders for initial inventory of many titles, preferring to monitor consumer behavior around individual games before placing reorders. Many publishers, like Electronic Arts and Take-Two, cited this pattern of enhanced retail risk-aversion as a drag on their year-end sales results. Dunn says that Best Buy, at least, is set to loosen its belt a bit this season, however. "We are hiring more people for seasonal business," he said. "You are going to see us go deeper on inventory bets. I'm more optimistic today than I was in June." Analysts agree that most retailers who sell game software will have to implement aggressive price promotions to help drive foot traffic, creating a careful balancing act between stores and software publishers on building revenue while drawing shoppers in.