Gamestation

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Gamestation

Type	Retail store
Founded	1993
Headquarters	UK
Key people	Stephen Hall Julian Gladwin (co-founders)
Industry	Video games retail
Products	Games Consoles Computer Games Accessories
Website	http://www.gamestation.co.uk

Gamestation is a chain of UK retail shops selling used and new videogames, and is currently the second-largest specialist video game retailer in the UK. It is fully owned and operated by Blockbuster, which bought the chain in 2002.^[1]

Gamestation currently have over 200 outlets in the UK, as well as small "concession" stores that operate inside of some Blockbuster stores.

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.

[edit] Deals and appeal

Gamestation's primary competitor is GAME, who are the largest UK games retailer. Therefore, Gamestation's main method of attracting customers is to put on more special offers ("deals") than their competitor. Most of their deals focus on pre-owned games, selling older titles at a rate of four for £20 and newer titles at a rate of two for £20, and similar offers. Bundled deals on games consoles often offer more choice and variety on pack-in games than GAME and other competitors.

Unlike GAME, customers may buy and part-exchange video games from a wide range of systems, including the PC. Naturally, the chain focuses on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable consoles, but they will accept games and consoles for older systems, such as the Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, NES, Super NES and Nintendo 64. They also sell game accessories for the older consoles as well.

[edit] 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 branch featured on an ITV game show, which can be found on YouTube.

The business was 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 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.