Once beleaguered British high street retailer GAME has shown that physical and real world game sales are far from dead, as despite entering administration in the first half of 2012 and looking like it would go the way of similar brands Blockbuster and Comet, has in-fact turned things around hugely, with great Christmas sales numbers.
In-fact things are going so well, that there's even talk of floating the company's shares on the stock exchange for as much as £300 ($492) million . An amazing achievement considering not long ago the firm was thought to be worth only a few million - most of which came from existing stock.
No doubt the launch of the new consoles helped the chain immensely, as with stock at other retailers limited, GAME was able to step in and provide a service that it was guaranteed to have a marketplace for.
Similarly though, it's worked on new initiatives like pushing hardware sales and Lock-Ins, that allow members of the public to play upcoming games a couple of months before release.
Perhaps the biggest contributor though, is thought to be the closure of unprofitable stores. While the market has certainly contracted, meaning a lot of the smaller stores aren't as busy as they once were, the ones in larger areas seem to be still turning a nice profit and they alone have spearheaded the revival.
On top of that though, the world economy is slowly coming to its senses. It's taken over half a decade, but we might be slowly edging out of the woods.
With news like this, perhaps there's hope for the likes of Gamestop?
