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Struggling High Street retailers GAME and gamestation claimed close to 50 per cent of all Vita hardware sales in the UK on launch week, industry sources have told MCV.
Sales of the new handheld were so reliant on GAME and gamestation that one publisher exec believes platform holders should bend over backwards to ensure their new hardware is seen in the stores.
“As much as the world wants to bash GAME at the moment, you can’t escape the fact that if you’re launching new hardware or a big game there’s no better launch partner than GAME,” said the unnamed exec.
“Obviously its position is threatened by not carrying some new games, and with every new release they miss the problem gets worse. But if Microsoft or Sony announced a new machine tomorrow or Nintendo surprised us with an early Wii U release they’d be mad not do whatever it took to get GAME on board.”
The exec concluded: “Sony owes GAME a lot for getting Vita off the ground in the UK. Some other publishers would do well to recognise this.”
PS Vita is believed to have sold around 61,000 units during its first week on sale in the UK.
With such a large proportion of PS Vita sales taken by GAME and gamestation it does ask the question: who will pick up the slack if the group goes under?
GAME was in no way the cheapest place to pick up a PS Vita at launch, yet around 30,000 customers (if rumoured sales figures are accurate) chose the retailer over the likes of Amazon and Play.com which each offered considerably more enticing bundle prices.
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