High street retailer HMV has admitted that it is to reconsider its focus in the video games market after pressures from supermarket and online competition this past Christmas.
The UK retailer’s market share has remained static for both music and DVDs sales, however the gaming market share has fallen by 16% over Christmas – a period that is considered the busiest time for retailers. Games sold in HMV stores now account for just 20% of HMV’s total sales in stores.
“I think one of the things we will do is look at what per cent of games should make up as part of the mix,” said chief executive Simon Fox.
In future, the store may focus towards triple-A releases and not support a vast collection of back-catalogue titles as well as focusing more on hardware, where sales of hardware technology in-store were up by 51% at supported stores.
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