GameStop announced today that they’ve entered a strategic partnership with Microsoft to help improve their stores. This comes after GameStop’s last earnings call revealed hundreds of store closures, losses, and more. Their stocks tanked hard following this news.
The new partnership with Microsoft will really help GameStop cater to customers more. Employees will get Microsoft Surface tablets and access to a variety of programs to help them. This will allow them to track key data such as purchasing habits, trends, and more to cater to their customers.
As analyst Daniel Ahmad notes, this will basically re-work how they offer pre-orders. Instead of asking if you want to pre-order a game you’re not interested in, they will use your purchasing history to try and offer you things you may like.
Microsoft will also continue to expand their offerings to GameStop via programs like Xbox All-Access. This allows for customers to essentially use a payment plan to pay for things like consoles.
“For many years GameStop has been a strong go-to-market partner for our gaming products, and we are excited about continuing and evolving that relationship for the launch of the Xbox Series X|S. GameStop’s extensive store base, focus on digital transformation in an omni-channel environment and expert gamer associates remain an important part of our gaming ecosystem, and we’re pleased to elevate our partnership,” said Head of Xbox Phil Spencer.
While it’s unclear if this will “save” GameStop, it will definitely help keep them afloat for a while longer. If Xbox ever decides to allow for “trading in” digital games, GameStop could serve as the middle-man for this service and benefit from it extremely. They’d be the only retailer to offer digital trade-ins on top of physical games.
That could be outlandish and never happen but it’s an interesting what if scenario.
