Marketing Channels

GameStop is an American corporation with more than six thousand stores across eighteen countries in Europe and the Americas. As the biggest video game retailer in the world, this company is an important intermediary between Nintendo and some of its final consumers.

After merging with EB Games in 2005, GameStop has gained a lot of power in the video game industry. But the relationships between these two companies have been jeopardized because of GameStop's strategy to buy and sell used games. By doing so, GameStop's makes a lot of profit. 48% of its revenue comes from the sales of used games. This strategy negatively affects Nintendo and other video game developers because they are not making any profit out of it.

Therefore, Nintendo has been promoting the internet distribution of some of its video games. The Wii Shop Channel and the DSi Shop are the direct channels by which Nintendo now attempts to reach its consumers and make pure profit.

GameStop is now threatened by Nintendo's new direct distribution channel, along with other video game retailers who do not know what their future will be.