We mostly kept to ourselves, but on the rare occasion that a Software, Etc. The videos were replaced times a year to stay current. Near the end of my employment, we did get a N64 kiosk that had Super Mario 64 included. Having the playable system in-store did help increase store traffic, but it also would attract kids and teenagers that would come and play as much as they could, sometimes doing their best to stay for hours.
Our store also had a small backroom that held back stock, various cleaning supplies, and also the holy grail of our store: the shrink wrap machine. I got to borrow a lot of great games and needless to say, I was in heaven.
We also had access to the latest release schedules for all the new games coming out. At the time in magazines , games were generally not given street dates publicly.
People would call from time to time to ask us about release dates, which we gladly shared. I wonder if they ever got their money back? I have a few other memories of interesting things that happened during my employment. One was that on occasion celebrities would visit the mall. I remember one night when John Larroquette came into the store, and I sold him quite a few Playstation games.
Also, one of the managers had a few friends that worked at Virgin Interactive and Interplay in Irvine , so some of them used to come hang out from time to time and tell us about what they were working on. One time, in particular, someone from Interplay came over and brought concept art to show us for what would later become the original Fallout. At the time, the dominant home video game system was the Atari , which featured four-color graphics. Eventually Atari was superseded by Nintendo and Sega of America systems, and Babbage's redirected its product line accordingly.
In Babbage's added another 35 stores and began selling software for the then-dominant eight-bit Nintendo Entertainment System with color graphics. Following the public offering, Perot tendered his stake in the company, and Babbage's continued accelerating its expansion drive with the proceeds of stock sales, opening 50 new stores that year to give the company retail outlets. In , Babbage's began losing business because of severe allocations of video games. Struck by a string of losses in the first three quarters of the year, the company responded by reducing prices on leading computer software titles and adding new cartridge-based video games to its line.
Moreover, in the fall, Babbage's helped introduce the new bit, color Sega Genesis entertainment system, which quickly changed the landscape of the video game industry.
Because of its superior capabilities, Sega Genesis generated a renewed interest in home video game systems. Fifty-three new store openings in bringing the company's total to and a barrage of new low-profit-margin products pushed the company's earnings and its stock's trading value down. Babbage's responded to its financial troubles by scaling back the company's expansion program--opening only 19 stores in and focusing on cost-control measures and improved inventory turnover.
Moreover, a new computerized point-of-sale inventory system was established, tracking sales and inventory after each business day and automatically generating orders for shipment from the company's Dallas warehouse the following morning.
Opal P. Ferraro, who joined Baggage's in as controller, was named chief financial officer in , and, two years later, Ferraro joined McCurry and Kusin as the only other company officer on Babbage's board of directors.
In Babbage's added more than 40 new stores and began selling a CD-ROM peripheral attachment for the Sega bit system that allowed interaction with digitized video footage. In the fall of , Babbage's began selling Panasonic's bit game system, which operated through compact discs.
This new technology threatened to render the bit systems obsolete, and Babbage's experienced rapid declines in its sales of video game systems and software during the Christmas season, with the average Babbage's store posting 5 percent lower sales than a year earlier. Realizing that the market for bit technology had matured, Babbage's slashed prices on hundreds of video game titles early the following year in an effort to unload its inventory of the increasingly dated software. In Babbage's opened 56 new stores.
The company, however, generated only a 12 percent increase in sales, and, for the first time since , increased revenues did not translate into higher earnings for the company. Education and productivity software, along with computer supplies and accessories, cumulatively accounted for the remaining third.
Babbage's entered with a store chain and plans to open between 30 and 40 more stores that year. As a result of holiday season price reductions, Babbage's stores had substantially reduced their inventory. Babbage's entered the mids facing increasing competition from other software specialty stores, mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
In order to better position itself within this increasingly competitive environment, Babbage's elected to merge with another specialty software retailer. Software Etc. Stores, Inc. Dalton Bookseller Inc.
That year, B. Dalton began adding Software Etc. Late in , however, Dayton Hudson sold B. Riggio played a key role in separating Software Etc. Dalton, and the former began operating as Software Etc. A gradual physical separation began as well, as Software Etc. Dalton bookstores and into their own, largely mall-based, standalone stores. The chain was also expanded to nearly units by the end of , and its product mix was altered, away from entertainment software toward higher-end PC and Mac software applications.
The company's timing was excellent as it was able to ride the latest crest in the video game sector in the early s, registering 20 to 30 percent annual increases in same-store sales that is, sales at stores open at least one year. Early in , operating about stores in 37 states and the District of Columbia, Software Etc.
Stores completed an initial public offering of 2. By the completion of the merger with Babbage's in December , Software Etc. There was little overlap between the two chains: the two operated stores in fewer than 50 of the same malls. Combined, the chains fielded stores in more than half of the 1, malls in the Unites States--making it the largest consumer software specialty retailer in the country. The deal was structured as a stock swap in which both Babbage's and Software Etc.
Babbage's, Inc. Headquarters for NeoStar were established in Dallas, where Babbage's had been based. The introductions of a new generation of video game systems, the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation, both bit systems, failed to provide the boost to NeoStar that the previous new waves of hardware had given to the company's predecessors. One key reason was competition. Previously, Babbage's and Software Etc. This prompted management and organizational changes.
DeMatteo resigned and McCurry took on the additional post of president. Bush was brought onboard as its head. Bush was the former president of Tandy Corporation's Computer City division. Not able to stem the decline in sales nor to secure enough financing to stock its shelves for the coming holiday season, NeoStar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September Board member Thomas G. Plaskett was named chairman and charged with leading the reorganization, while McCurry continued to handle day-to-day operations as CEO and president.
Plaskett had gained a reputation as a turnaround expert from his failed but valiant attempt to rescue Pan Am Corp. In October NeoStar announced it would close 42 of its stores, all of which were located near other company stores. When the company could not secure the additional financing it needed in order to reorganize, the stores were placed up for sale.
Riggio created a new holding company called Babbage's Etc. The remaining or so stores were shut down. Riggio served as chairman, and he brought R.
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