So How Did Best Buy’s “Wii for Women” Turn Out?

Best Buy held a rather strange event last weekend known as “Wii for Women.” As you can figure from the title, the event was aimed at women and the Wii, with giveaways and Wii systems to play. For whatever reason, 1UP’s Kris Pigna decided to attend and gauge the reaction of the crowd.

In between overhearing things like a Best Buy employee suggesting the Wii had better graphics than Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, Kris talked with a variety of individuals that were attending. Thoughts were all over the board, from enthusiastic, “Where can I get one?” down to a meh, “I’ll play it at my friend’s house.”

So in total, that’s three in the flock, two flying free. But five out of the nearly 100 people who attended the event throughout the day isn’t exactly the best representative sample, and for what it’s worth, the Best Buy management was happy with the outcome. “The event was to get women more aware of the games and stuff that are available for the Wii, that’s geared more toward the female gender than the male gender,” said Best Buy marketing manager Charles Atwell. “It was a huge success. We had a lot of people that came, that wanted to demo the Wii and of course purchase the Wii too.”

According to store associates, Best Buy received a stock of around 45-50 Wiis, which sold through in an hour and a half (an eternity in Desperate-Wii-Seeker time). A few lucky folks also got some swag from raffles held every half-hour, with the grand prize winner getting a Wii of his own.

I don’t quite understand the need to create even more of a demand for the Wii; I can understand Best Buy wanting to get Wii shoppers into their stores, but wouldn’t a simple “We have the Wii” in the weekly ads suffice? Overall, it sounds like it was a successful event though, so don’t be shocked if you end up running into a few more soccer moms while playing with your Wii online.

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