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GameStop sees increased Xbox One interest following price drop reveal
GameStop President Tony Bartel noted an increased interest for Microsoft's Xbox One following the hardware manufacturer's recent decision to change course and package the console without the Kinect camera peripheral. "I definitely think we're already seeing in our stores with our reservation program as well as the dialog to Power-Up Rewards that there's a stronger demand as a result of the price drop," Bartel said during the company's earnings call this week. Microsoft announced that it will begin selling the Xbox One without the Kinect last week. The dis-Kinected console will hit retail on June 9 for $399 in North America and £349 in the UK. Following the news, GameStop began offering special trade-in prices for Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles in exchange for in-store credit towards the cheaper Xbox One. Microsoft also revealed that it will no longer keep media streaming app like Netflix and Hulu Plus behind its Xbox Live paywall, though it confirmed to Joystiq that free-to-play and subscription-based games such as The Elder Scrolls Online would still require the paid Xbox Live subscription to play. "The good news for us is it sells more units. We'll sell a lot more units, because like we shared earlier, we're driving a lot of the growth, and that means there will be more [Xbox One] units out there to put software on," Bartel added. GameStop reported total global sales of $2 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 (ending May 3, 2014), which amounted to a seven percent increase year-over-year. [Image: GameStop]
GameStop sells through PS4 allocation, 2.3 million people on 'first to know' list [Update]
GameStop has sold through all of its PS4 reservations and some additional allocated consoles it received from Sony, the retailer announced during its third quarter earnings call. GameStop President Tony Bartel added that the company has "over 2.3 million customers on the 'first to know' list, which indicates continued demand for months to come" for Sony's console. "Although we won't reveal the total amount of units for competitive reasons, our share was higher than on any previous console launch, and our sell-through since launch was 80 percent higher than the total amount of PS3s that we sold in our 2006 fiscal year," Bartel said. Bartel corroborated Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO Jack Tretton's recent projection that the PS4 would sell 3 million units in North America by the end of the year, noting that GameStop expects "to sell a large portion of that." In regards to projections for Xbox One sales, which launched today, Bartel said "the value of our reservations and the additional allocation is 15 percent higher than the amount of Xbox 360s that we sold during our entire 2005 fiscal year. So we are poised for a powerful launch." Update: As a clarification, GameStop has informed Joystiq that the 2.3 million people on its 'first to know' list is for PS4 and Xbox One customers combined, not just the former.
Assassin's Creed 3 is Ubisoft's most pre-ordered game ever
Assassin's Creed 3 hasn't yet arrived, but Ubisoft already claims its trip through the American Revolutionary has garnered the highest number of pre-orders for the company so far. We don't know any hard numbers at this point, save for the fact that AC3 has over double the pre-orders of last year's Assassin's Creed: Revelations, with a few days to go before launch at the end of the month.GameStop is predictably thrilled: Company president Tony Bartel is practically climbing trees with excitement in the press release below. Ubisoft also says the Assassin's Creed series has sold over 40 million games worldwide, and it expects the official number 3 to add to that total significantly. Wherever the series is going, it certainly isn't down.
GameStop appoints new CEO, promotes several executives
Gamestop seems to have decided that all of its executives needed promotions. Former CEO Dan DeMatteo (last seen talking up EA Online Pass) is now "Executive Chairman" of the company, with J. Paul Raines (formerly COO) now stepping up to the CEO position. Executive Vice President Tony Bartel will now occupy the new position of "President," with Robert Lloyd (formerly Senior Vice President and Acting Interim CFO) as CFO. Michael K. Mauler is now EVP, GameStop International. It's like musical chairs, but there's a chair for everyone playing, and it's much softer than the one you're sitting in. DeMatteo suggested that the moves would help GameStop's goals of "expansion into new markets and continued focus on strategic initiatives such as our new loyalty program, downloadable content (DLC) marketing and sales, and the evolution of GameStop.com into a robust digital platform." Which, if all goes correctly, will bring in enough revenue to allow GameStop to create some more executive jobs. [Via IndustryGamers]
Red Dead Redemption a 'surprise' hit for GameStop
During an investors call today, GameStop executive VP of Merchandise and Markerting Tony Bartel mentioned that the company's recent earnings had been boosted by a title that apparently wasn't expected to be such a powerhouse. "Red Dead Redemption has been one of the very positive surprises," Bartel explained. "It probably has outperformed as large as any title has so far year-to-date." (Redemption was released this week, so presumably Bartel is largely referring to pre-order figures.) As we see it, this could mean one of two things: Either Red Dead Redemption is doing outrageously, phenomenally well, or GameStop didn't expect a game made by Rockstar, which had a marketing budget of a hojillion dollars, to have much sales power. Considering the company isn't run by baboons, we doubt it's the latter.
GameStop: Console shortages likely not fixed until summer
On the same conference call earlier this week in which it talked about its new rewards program, GameStop Executive VP of Merchandising, Tony Bartel, said that stores currently experiencing Wii and PlayStation 3 shortages probably won't find relief very soon. While the retailer is always bugging Sony and Nintendo for more units, Bartel said that GameStop "could sell a lot more hardware than what we have on both the PS3 and Wii platform," and that situation probably won't change until early summer of this year. He did say that the Wii is due for a re-supply first, but he believes that both Nintendo and Sony are "still scrambling to catch up from the surge" of the last holiday season. But a shortage like this isn't unprecedented -- as we get closer to summer, we'll probably see new inventory appearing on shelves, ready to go home to a caring gamer.
GameStop: PS3 sales remain 'very strong' post price cut
For a moment, let's ignore the billions Sony has lost on the PS3 so far and focus on optimism for the future. GameStop executive vice president Tony Bartel notes that momentum for the console has maintained a solid sales pace following Sony's most recent price drop and hardware remodeling.Bartel tells IndustryGamers that there was a natural surge after the initial announcement of the price drop months ago and that the retailer has seen "very strong" PS3 sales through October. He didn't reveal specific data, though, and we'll have to wait and see if his claims are reflected in the overall October hardware sales figures released by the NPD later this month. %Poll-36442%
