Now here’s a real economic indicator: during the fiscal quarter ending May 2 of this year, used game sales at GameStop increased by 31.9 percent, while new game sales decreased by 2.8 percent. Game sales in the US aren’t declining, new game sales are — to the tune of 548.5 million dollars in Q1 2009 alone, just over a quarter of GameStop’s entire earnings during the period.
Sure, the Nintendo DSi release and a handful of blockbuster titles from Capcom earlier this year helped to keep new games and hardware from dropping off too much — new hardware numbers actually increased from last year. But that isn’t to say that the 114 new stores opened by the company recently due to “the downward pressure of rents” is a good idea. While GameStop predicts even better sales over the next half of the year, it’d be wise to carefully plan around the “brittle global economy.”
Used game sales balloon GameStop Q1 2009 numbers originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 21 May 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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