Tesco, the UK supermarket chain, will no longer stock physical video games in its 2,800 stores, Gamesindustry.biz has learned. This appears to be in large part thanks to the current buying habits of customers, who, according to Tesco, are now leaning “towards digital entertainment.” The news comes a few months after GameStop revealed that it would be closing all of its 35 stores in Ireland after major losses.
“You saw what happened with the pandemic, with digital racing ahead more than anything we had forecasted… Customers rushed to online, and although some came back, it’s not been all,” said Nick Arran, boss of UK retail chain GAME, who claimed last month that it would be the last-standing source for physical games. “You can see from market data that online is 75% of the market. Before the pandemic, it was 45%.”
The games market across the UK has rapidly accelerated towards digital. Across the four big games of June — Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16, Street Fighter 6 and F1 23 — less than 18% of these games were sold via physical stores.
Discussion (6 replies)
Join Discussion →so... umm...
Is it common practice to buy your video games at the same place you buy rotisserie chicken and chex mix?
The only thing I can think of even close to analogous would be Costco... which is an entire microcosm unto itself.
In Europe most supermarkets sell everything. They also used to sell music, dvds and blurays. But those were gone for a while now. And the video games section has been shrinking consistently. I bought my very first original game at a supermarket: Cyberia. And got a few more budget games from supermarkets in the past.
It's like when you leave Texas to discover supermarkets in other states can sell hard alcohol too. Or hell even convenience stores can as well. It seems shocking to not need to go to a specific liquor store.
When I read this, the first thing I said was "since when do supermarkets sell video games anyways?!"
whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
Supermarkets are like Walmart/target. Not such a big leap really.
I guess this is true - I haven't been in a WalMart or Target in years, but yeah, I totally forgot most of them have grocery sections too.