GameStop released its report for the third quarter of the fiscal year, which ended November 3, 2018. While the report already factored in the company’s sale of Spring Mobile, GameStop still reported a loss of $488.6 million. Although some facets of the company prospered, in comparison to past performance, GameStop’s 13.4% decline in pre-owned sales is definitely taking a toll.
As a result, GameStop has dialed back its expectations for fourth quarter performance. Chief financial officer of GameStop, Rob Lloyd, issued the following statement about the situation.
We anticipate that our fourth quarter sales will skew more towards hardware than initially planned which, along with underperformance of certain titles, weakness in pre-owned and recent sales promotions will result in fourth-quarter earnings that are below our previous expectations.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for GameStop, however. New hardware and software sales have increased by 12.8% and 10.9%, respectively. But GameStop knows, perhaps better than any retailer, that new isn’t always better.
In fact, GameStop’s used inventory is the foundation of their company (for better or worse). But with players often turning to digital versions of games for convenience and/or discounts, it’s no surprise that when they do buy from GameStop, it’s a new copy of the game. In the era of premium consoles with the next gen around the corner, it doesn’t seem like this trend will change anytime soon.
[Source: GameStop]
