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Despite its $56 billion offer being rejected, GameStop still intends to purchase the online marketplace eBay.
If you’re curious to know how exactly video games slot into the overall business plan for this combined entity, it’s apparently not a concern for the company’s CEO, Ryan Cohen.
Speaking to Bloomberg Tech about GameStop’s hopes of creating a $1 trillion business, Cohen noted how video game software “mattered in the past” but is now less than 12 percent of the business, and the plans for eBay are much more ambitious.
Here’s the full exchange, with the question also touching on Sony’s recent decision to end disc-based physical releases by 2028:
Bloomberg Tech: The situation is collectibles are clearly a central part of the plan, right, if this deal goes through the combined entity? On gaming it sounds like you are preparing for a world where gaming is disc-less, there will be a trade in, second hand trade in, but this is the umbrella point right?
Like if the hardware makers Sony, Xbox are reportedly moving to disc-less on the console side, future game launches are digital only. Where does that fit in for your business plan in the combined entity?
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen: It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter at all. Software, it mattered in the past. Software today makes up less than 12% of the business and collectibles makes up over half the business. So it’s totally and totally irrelevant.”
As stated, collectibles now make up “over half the business” for GameStop, with the company reportedly making record-breaking profits for the first quarter of the fiscal year thanks to Pokémon Trading Cards and action figures.
Cohen signed off from the same interview claiming GameStop was “coming for eBay one way or another”, but declined to comment on whether or not he would raise the price of his offer.
Again, this follows Sony’s news it is ending disc-based physical game releases by 2028, which has led to all sorts of discourse about the console market’s physical future.