Last year the Wii title Xenoblade Chronicles made news more than a year after release for GameStop setting the price of used copies of the game at $90. While this was temporary as the price was eventually lowered to $40, this led many people to speculate that GameStop had been hoarding unsold copies of the game in order to jack them up at player demand. That wasn’t exactly the case, though GameStop did capitalize on the game’s popularity. The company actually worked with Nintendo to reprint copies of Xenoblade Chronicles and Metroid Prime Trilogy in order to bring them to customers, and it looks like they’ll be doing it again for rare titles.
According to GameStop, there’s a type of customer that comes in at the start of every new console generation, looking to capitalize on lower hardware prices and the great games of the previous generation.
“There’s a value buyer that comes back into GameStop at the start of a generation, and we want to serve them better than ever.”
According to GameStop chief executive Paul Raines, meeting demand for popular games that may not have tons of copies in circulation is no different than buying up pre-owned copies.
“The way to think about it, these games don’t really need to be promoted differently than pre-owned games. We’re gonna meet unmet demand. There are games that are just not available in some stores.”
Where once you had to browse internet sites like eBay to find old games, it looks like GameStop is looking to break into the market by creating new copies of fan favorites. It worked well for them in working with Nintendo to re-produce Xenoblade Chronicles, as it was in top demand for a few months in 2013. What do you think about this new business strategy? What games would you like to see reprinted to make more available?
[via Yahoo]
