Woah – I knew GameStop made bank on console launches, and on trade-ins in general, but if you combine the two it’s hard to believe anyone has ever doubted brick-and-mortar stores at all. The gaming retail giant is reporting that trade-ins have reached ridiculous peaks in light of the recent PlayStation 4 launch, and that many gamers have near-funded their new console purchase by the time they actually get their hands on it.
According to GameStop, about 43% of next-gen console pre-orders fall into this fully-paid category, with a sizeable 20% having lightened that load with used game trade-ins in at least some capacity. In a talk with Polygon, GameStop senior vice president of merchandising Bob Puzon had the following to say.
Most of the people trading in [on Sunday] were already pre-ordered and they were paying off their order. We have a much larger base of people who are fully paid off than when the last generation launched. Last time we were taking $50 for a reservation and this time we are taking $100.
When the kids finish a game they bring it back in and instead of asking for cash or credit they are applying it to their console order. Our number has grown substantially week over week. I think we will see a lot of people coming into stores and being fully paid off.
For every dollar that is traded in, a dollar and seventy is being spent in store on either hardware or software or accessories.
[The customer’s] number one concern is affordability. So we really put some horsepower behind marketing our trade options. A lot of money is being re-applied to the new games consoles.
Well, I think we can safely say that GameStop won’t be going anywhere this generation – especially if them “kids” keep on tradin’ in them used games, ya heard? At any rate, the release of the Xbox One on November 22nd ought to ramp the situation up all over again, so I’m sure we’ll be re-hearing similar news in short order.