Daniel DeMatteo, COO of GameStop, says that the casual gaming market is going to change the way that his company does business. Devoting spaces to both family-friendly, casual titles and rhythm-based games, he hopes the company will be able maximize profits. Also, he says something kind of crazy in that he thinks the PS2 is the "only one real value video game machines out there."Uh, hey ... what about the DS? It's a very inexpensive system that has fairly inexpensive titles and the handheld is incredibly popular both here in the states and abroad. Are we right, or are we right?
1. They're probably not mentioning the DS as a "value system" because of the fact that they don't offer any significant preowned game discounts on DS games, and, as such, the system is less helpful to their business model in comparison to the PS2, where they invest only a dollar or two in the most popular games, and almost immediately re-sell them because the price is appealing to newcomers to the system and, even if someone wants a sealed copy, if the game is old enough it's impossible to find one so you're forced to go with used.
In contrast, as far as I know they pay slightly more for most used DS games and they end up rotting on the shelves right next to the sealed copies at only $3-$5 less, which isn't enough to outweigh the assurance of security that comes with a new copy of a game.
Posted at 2:52PM on Sep 12th 2007 by Orville the Unfathomable Time Walrus