GAME: Pre-owned grows the new market

The market for new triple-A titles would be diminished were it not for the pre-owned sector, GAME Group CEO Ian Shepherd has claimed.

"The existence of pre-owned makes the new market bigger," he said at today’s strategy briefing. "It makes it more affordable, reduces the total cost of ownership.

However, despite more retailers than ever trying to introduced pre-owned games into their in-store offer, Shepherd isn’t afraid of the increased competition.

"It’s a difficult business," he said. "Think of the depreciation. Hypothesise about a supermarket doing pre-owned. they pay for the game and now the clock starts ticking. Every day that goes buy it’s worth a bit less. How long does it take to get it on the shelf? If it’s a week then you’re losing money."

Another pre-owned success has been Gamestation’s buy-back offer on hardware.

"In some of our Gamestation store you can trade-in your console for money and then buy it back when you’ve been paid. The early results of that have been really positive."