HMV’s 60 years of entertainment – but where are games?

Entertainment retailer HMV has been running a Six Decades of Entertainment promotion throughout the summer, but video games will not feature in it.

The chain has so far offered discounts on classic films and albums from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s with the ‘90s and ‘00s still to come.

HMV could stock the likes of GTA IV or Modern Warfare as part of the promotion, plus retro game cards. However, the reality is the games industry does not utilise its back catalogue in the same way as the movie and music markets.

Due to the nature of the music and film markets, and the consistent sell-through of product from the past 70 years, it was a commercially viable offer,” a HMV spokesperson told MCV. Unfortunately, this is not replicated in games due to the evolution of technology, so we chose to leave it out of the promotion.

As much as we would all have loved to revisit our childhood favourites, it was not commercially viable.”