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It might continue to be hard to find Switch consoles on the High Street for the rest of the year, retailer GameStop has predicted.
VentureBeat reports that despite strong demand, the retailer says that any potential Switch success has not influenced its financial forecasts as it cannot be sure how many units it will be able to secure.
There’s a lot of excitement about the Switch, but there’s also a lot of caution,” GameStop chief executive Paul Raines told investors. We’re very cautious simply because of limited allocation. We don’t really have an aggressive forecast built-in for the Switch. We’ve learned with Nintendo not to do that.
Chief operating officer Tony Bartel added: The demand is incredible strong. As soon as we get it into stores, it’s out within hours. We anticipate that we’ll be chasing supply this entire year.”
GameStop last week reported year-on-year drops in both revenue and income. Revenues for the quarter ending January 28th fell 13.6 per cent to $3.05bn, while net income dropped 18 per cent to $208.7bn. Adjusted earnings were down by three per cent. Comparable store sales declined by 16.3 per cent internationally and 20.8 per cent in the US.
It said that weakening games sales due to the aging generation of consoles and a few triple-A flops were the main culprit, along with strong competition from retail rivals throughout the Black Friday period.
Its senior director of merchandising Eric Bright recently made the somewhat bold prediction that he thinks Switch could outpace Nintendo’s most successful ever home console.
The Nintendo Switch is off to a start right now that it could possibly eclipse the Wii,” he said. Initial sales on this have been phenomenal. I can’t give straight numbers, but I can say we’re seeing one of the highest attach rates of software and accessories to a device that we’ve seen in a long time.”
