It’s no secret that retail store GameStop has been struggling financially as of late, and the company has now blamed the problem on next-gen consoles.
Over the festive period, which ended on Jan 4 2020, GameStop reported a revenue loss of 27.5 percent compared to the same timeframe last year. The stores have announced the nine-week season generated $1.83 billion USD of revenue. Store sales also fell by a sharp 24.7 percent.
Commenting on the drop, GameStop CEO George Sherman explained that the company had expected a “challenging sales environment” over the holidays thanks to the end of the current generation of consoles.
He said: “Our customers continue to delay purchases ahead of anticipated console launches in late 2020.”
While this may be true, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch bundles are still a hot commodity when it comes to the present-giving season. What’s more likely a factor in the loss is the increase in game downloads over physical purchases.
The Nintendo Switch, presumably helped by the fairly-recent launch of the Switch Lite, is something that GameStop is seemingly to be quite dependent on.
Management stated [via GameSpot]: “We continued to see growth in the Nintendo Switch platform, which supports our view that our sales will strengthen as new consoles and innovative technology are introduced.”
The Nintendo Switch is a fantastic console, arguably the Nintendo’s best ever and with over 40 million worldwide sales (and counting), which includes 2 million sales of the Nintendo Switch Lite during the first 11 days of it launching, the numbers certainly helps back-up such claims.
Sadly for its many employees, the company will be closing 180-200 “underperforming” stores by February 2020, including sites in the US, Australia and EU to make up for the low sales, Meanwhile, the company’s stock market values have plummeted to an all-time low.
Featured Image Credit: GameStop