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GameStop Wading into Tablet Sales

Gamers have a love/hate relationship with GameStop. On the one hand, GameStop is a monstrous corporate entity that pays pennies on the dollar for trade-in games and uses harsh tactics to reap a mountain of sales that don’t really benefit developers or publishers. On the other, it’s often very convenient to drop into a GameStop, trade in a few old games and pick up something new. But GameStop, like most retailers, faces an entire new world of online competition. The world of video games is especially fast moving, with a large number of purchases now going to direct downloads instead of brick and mortar retail chains. GameStop seems to be aware of the trend, and is adding new services in the hopes of balancing out its business model.



Starting this holiday season, GameStop will try a new program in 200 U.S. stores in which it sells tablet PC devices. The store will offer only Android tablets at first,  from manufacturers like Samsun, Acer and Asustek. They’re not straying too far from their gaming roots, packing seven free games (Dead Space!) in with each tablet and creating a special wireless controller to interact with each device.

My friend and I were actually in a GameStop last week (she was looking for some old DS game) and noticed that they’re now accepting iPad trade-ins, so maybe this is just the first step in an entirely new business model. If they want to keep their profits high, they have to find revenue other than software.

Of course, this also brings them one step closer to their pawnshop reputation, but we’ll just have to see how it plays out.

Would you buy a tablet at GameStop, or have your experiences with the company soured you to the brand?

This post was written by: Irfan Jam

Irfan Jam is a professional blogger, web designer and front end web developer. Follow him on Facebook