GameStop To Shut Tons Of Physical Stores Amid Sales Decline

Following sharp decline in sales of videogame GameStop has decided to shut down about 150 stores this year and concentrate more on non-gaming businesses.

In recent years gamers have shifted to digital downloads from buying the games in physical format from outlets.

GameStop Corp. Chief Executive J. Paul Raines said their brand has lost market share over the holiday period due to fall in sales as well as earnings and high discounts offered on many games.

He added they slashed down the prices more than what was expected and tbis led to a steep decline in the retail pricing of games.

GameStop is presently betting on gaming consoles including Nintendo Co.’s Switch keeping hope to generate huge sales like that of Nintendo’s Wii system earlier.

Switch was released last month across the world.

Raines said, “The Switch has provided a dramatic lift in traffic in stores and has real potential to be Wii-like in its ability to expand the gaming category from core to broad audiences.”

The gaming retail house relied completely on store sales in 2008. Currently the brand has 7,500 stores globally.

Over the period of past twelve months the shares of GameStop has declined 21 percent. Amid such situation shut down of 2-3 percent of the stores are being considered by the end of 2017.