Gamestop stays competitive with Walmart

(Dec 2 2009 Wal-Mart Newsroom) – Wal-Mart has just announced extra savings on video games now until December 24th. These new “rollbacks??? include Uncharted 2 for PS3, Dragon Age: Origins for PS3 or Tekken 6 on 360 for 50 bucks each. They also are running a special offer on the Wii from December 8th through the 12th- buy a $199 Wii console, get a $50 gift card.

Market Watch reports that Gamestop’s shares have tumbled upon the announcement of these new prices, and it is speculated that Gamestop may have to match these prices to stay competitive. Gamestop’s current price for any of the three games listed above is 59.99.

But of course, the report that is now being regurgitated on every website that has anything to do with gaming, stocks, or shopping doesn’t tell the whole story. On many other games the two have very similar pricing- on the Left 4 Dead Game of the Year Edition for 360, Gamestop’s price is three cents higher at $29.99, and Gamestop is seven cents higher on Resident Evil 5 for PS3. Gamestop has Valkyria Chronicles for PS3 for $19.99 (new) whereas Wal-Mart’s price is $29.96. Gamestop has Borderlands for $59.99 on either 360 or Playstation, and Wal-Mart… doesn’t appear to be selling Borderlands.

Gamestop also trumps Wal-Mart on DJ Hero for Wii- Gamestop’s current price is $109.99, about ten bucks less than Wal-Mart’s $119.99.

Bring em, sling em, and go home with a few extra creds.

(Yahoo News) – The verdict’s still out on Amazon’s mail-in games-for-credit scheme, but Wal-Mart’s not waiting for lightning to strike. The U.S. retail behemoth’s planning a swipe of its own at the billion-dollar used games biz by teaming with portable movie vendor e-Play to deliver store-based kiosks that — you guessed it — let you automatically trade your used copies of games like Ninjabread Man (very wise), Far Cry 2 (death to re-spawns!) and BioShock (are you insane?) for cash, piped to your preferred piece of plastic after a day or three.

Wherecan you do that? Some 80 Wal-Mart locales across the Northeastern US, reportedly, with more to follow if the program takes off. An enterprising would-be customer posting to Neocrisis actually found one and even paused to snap a few photos of the “Video Game Buy Back” mechanism.

How’s it work? Like you’d expect. You walk up to the pastel-blue kiosk, slip the UPC code on your game box under an omnidirectional scanner, and the machine pops up a trade-in quote if it’s in the “currently accepting” database (sorry Fallout 3 and Oblivion haggle/persuasion mavens, there’s no such option here). Assuming you’re cool with the price, you then slip the disc into a slot, the machine presumably ensures the disc isn’t crisscrossed with slash marks or slathered in too much Brasso, and presto, you’re a couple bucks richer-o.

[Read the full article at Yahoo Tech]