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'Gamestation' is a chain of UK retail shops selling used and new videogames, and was the second-largest specialist video game retailer in the UK until they were bought out by GAME. It is fully owned and operated by GAME, which bought the chain in 2007.^[1]
The business was originally sold by its founders during the peak sales period of PlayStation 2 to American video rental giant Blockbuster who invested heavily in an aggressive store roll out program, this coupled with competitive pricing subsidised by the buoyant video rental market of the time elevated the chain to second highest market share in the UK games industry; only peaked by GAME Group PLC themselves.
Opinion is still divided whether the company's reversal of fortune was driven by the wain in demand for Video rental mid decade or the cyclicle nature of the games industry but 2006 saw their American parent company file massive debts in the region of $550 million leading to wide spread speculation that the company was either rife to a take over or brinkering on the edge of administration.
Gamestation currently have over 200 outlets in the UK. Their smaller "concession" stores, that operate inside of some Blockbuster stores, were not involved in the GAME takeover and are now owned by Blockbuster exclusively. These stores have since been rebranded as 'Blockbuster Games' stores and no longer operate under the Gamestation logo. Gamestation are always opening new stores and the latest store to open is in Peterlee on with another store opening soon in Washington near Sunderland. Their current base of operations is Stirling Park in York.
Blockbuster Inc. said on Wednesday 2nd May 2007 it had sold Gamestation Ltd. to British-based GAME Group Plc for about £75 million ($150 million) in cash. Blockbuster said it intends to use most of the money from the sale of Gamestation, its 220+ store speciality games retailer in the UK, to pay down debt.

Contents

Deals and appeal

Trivia

References

Deals and appeal

Until they bought Gamestation, GAME - the UK's largest specialist gaming retailer - were considered to be Gamestation's primary competitor. Gamestation's main method of attracting customers is to put on more special offers than their competitor as well as focusing on pre-owned games and large discounts on older titles.
The chain focuses on the current generations of consoles: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable as well as the PC. They also sell, and accept as part exchange, games and consoles from older generations, such as the Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. Game accessories for the older consoles are also available. Recently they were one of the first UK stores to reduce the price of the PlayStation 3 to £399.99 (from £424.99) including on Blu-ray. This rivals a similar offer from play.com, bundling a PlayStation 3 with a free HDMI and Click on Blu-ray for the same price; GAME, meanwhile, have yet to reduce the price.

Trivia

★ The Gamestation branch located in Birmingham, England is the largest 'games-exclusive' store in Europe

★ The Gamestation's first shop was called the Games Exchange and was situated on Gillygate in the City Centre of York, England. They received a reputation in the area for exchanging games which was a relatively novel idea for the area and ensured the shop was extremely busy.
In 1999, the Hull City Centre branch featured on an ITV game show, which can be found on YouTube.

References

1. ''Infomat Resource Directory''. Retrieved from http://www.infomat.net/infomat/rd741/rd1/database/gamestation/index.asp 12 July 2006