It's looking like Gamestop may stop its game of being a stop for game enthusiasts. First step: Closing Gamestops.
Try to keep up.
Games Industry InternationalGameStop expects the console gaming space to total $18 billion by the end of 2015, but the specialty retailer has its eyes set on markets much bigger than that. In a presentation at GameStop's 2014 Investor Day yesterday, CEO Paul Raines heralded the dawn of what he called GameStop 3.0, a new phase of the company's lifespan that will see it aggressively expand its footprint into gaming-adjacent tech fields.
The two biggest fields GameStop is pursuing right now are mobile and Apple devices. While it already buys back smartphones and tablets at its GameStop locations, the retailer is focusing more on stand-alone chains to do the same: the AT&T-branded chain Spring Mobile and Apple retailer Simply Mac.
At the same time GameStop is pushing into these new fields, the company plans to scale back its gaming operations slightly. In the current fiscal year, the company expects to shutter somewhere between 120 and 130 of its 6,457 gaming retail locations worldwide.
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Gamestop 3.0: The "Point 0" makes it sound cool.
Before you start with the commenting and hooting and the hollering, this is not the death of Gamestop... not yet. Still, this sort of move suggests that the company might be less confident about their games business, though. Considering how pervasive online distribution has become, even on the consoles, it's easy to understand why.
I feel for all the Gamestop employees losing their jobs over this. They got Simply Mac and cheesed.