As a company, GameStop doesn’t even exist in my country (England). They gave it a try and failed, which isn’t a surprise given the state of our high streets. As a company, GameStop believes that their future is still bright, however, their recently released financial results don’t make for great reading, even with mitigating circumstances.
The report shows earnings for both the fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year. Let’s take a look at those figures. Starting with the quarter. GameStop’s fourth quarter sales were down 7.6% coming in at $3.1 Billion. Their store sales, however, did increase in the US by 3.4% while dropping by 2.9% internationally. As I said, we don’t even have the stores anymore, so that doesn’t help.
Hardware sales went down by 9.8% for new hardware. New software dropped by 7.8% with pre-owned falling by 21.3%. Their accessory sales was a plus point with a rise of 18.8% and digital sale brought another increase of 4.7%. Let’s not forget those collectibles, which had an increase of 3.1%.
The quarter saw GameStop post losses of $187.7 Million compared to the $105.9 Million lost in the corresponding quarter last year.
The year’s figures didn’t make for much better reading:
Total sales were $8.3 Billion. A decrease of 3.1%. US stores sales rose 1.8%, international fell 4.8%. New Hardware sales dropped 1.3% with new software falling by 5.1%. GameStop’s pre-owned sales dropped by 13.2%. Accessories increased by 22%, digital by 16.5 and collectibles by 11.2%. Overall the year saw a net loss of $673 million.
Executive chairman of GameStop, Dan DeMatteo, still has high hopes for the future and released the following statement:
“We are excited to move forward under George’s leadership as we refine our strategic direction and implement several initiatives under development to strengthen the company for the future and drive sustainable growth and profitability.”
Outside of Japan, the pre-owned games market is never easy (seriously, you should see it in Japan, every shop seems to be a treasure trove of wonders), GameStop is at least trying to face these challenges. Their latest figures aren’t helped by the fact the reporting time was shorter when compared to last year. The new figures are based on one week less for the quarter and year. With the next gen right around the corner, GameStop is probably hoping the new set of consoles come sooner rather than later.
I’m part of the problem, I get all my games online, for cost and convenience. How about you guys? Where do you pick up your games?
