In a press release, US retailer GameStop has reported “disappointing” holiday sales in the video game segment, which it says is down to “industry weakness, promotional pricing pressure and lower in-store traffic.”
Total global sales during the period amounted to $2.50 billion, which is a 16.4 percent decline compared to 2015’s holiday period. Total comparable store sales decreased by 18.7 percent. Interestingly, GameStop notes that Titanfall 2‘s and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare‘s “weak” sales “significantly” impacted the month of November alongside console promotions on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
CEO Paul Raines said in a statement:
We are disappointed with our overall results, but looking broadly, we did see continued growth in our non-physical gaming businesses and we expect this category to approach 40% of our earnings in fiscal 2016. As we look forward to 2017, we remain focused on our transformation plan, which includes growing our non-gaming businesses, right-sizing our global store portfolio by continuously evaluating non-productive stores for closure, and maintaining strong financial discipline, including reducing SG&A by $100 million by 2019.
While Infinite Warfare remains one of the top selling games of last year, it has suffered from an overall decline compared to its predecessor, Black Ops III, partly owing to competition from Battlefield 1 (a sales success) and Titanfall 2 among other factors.
Worth noting that a number of high profile releases including Watch Dogs 2 and Dishonored 2 also suffered from poor sales during the holiday 2016 period.
[Source: GameStop]
