Best Buy Gets Into Used Games Market, GameStop Doesn’t Care

Electronics retailer Best Buy is tossing its hat into the used games business ring, but current king of the market GameStop couldn’t care less.

From Amazon to Toys R Us to Wal-Mart, it seems that every company that can sell videogames these days also wants to sell (or at least buy) used games. Electronics mega-retailer Best Buy announced yesterday that it’ll be the latest entrant into the increasingly popular market, with a plan to install kiosks into its stores to trade in used games for store credit, similar to Wal-Mart’s scheme.

With all this big-name competition you’d think that GameStop, which currently sits on the majority of the pile of money that is the used games racket, would be a little bit scared, but the company seems to be completely nonplussed. The difference between their service and the kiosks at Best Buy and Wal-Mart, GameStop says, is the people.

“We are very confident in our business model that allows our expert associates to help consumers trade in product, a fact not addressed with a self-serve process,” GameStop said. No offense to any of you GameStop employees, but I’m sure there are some folks out there who’d be glad to avoid any interaction with GameStop staff.

Analysts agree that all these new names in the used games market won’t make much of a difference for GameStop itself. “While we believe that Best Buy’s entry into the used video game market will create a new overhang on shares of GameStop, we expect Best Buy’s initiative to expand the used videogame market rather than take significant share from the specialty channel,” Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital said.

So instead of knocking GameStop off the top of the money pile, this will just make the money pile bigger for everyone. I suppose it means more options for consumers, which should be a good thing in any case.