Gamestop to close Irish operations

Because up to last month I could have traded Hogwarts Legacy against it and paid €35 in Gamestop.

Gamestop did amazing value with trade ins if you knew how to play the game with the trade in boost list, loyalty card and other offers. I compare them to Ryanair in a way, some ridiculous extra fees but once you know how they work and avoid said fees you get some real bargains. With GS it was how I could justify buying new games on release, paying less than half price, sometimes i might trade in two games for a new one and they owed me money! That's gone completely now unfortunately bar the much lesser Cex option.

Don't think Gamestop were even here 20 years ago. Or at least only set up a year or two.

Yeah your right they are more pricey but was food say if you got a game in say smyths a new release and you clear it and then go to gamestop and if you can trade it in and get a pre release at 35 then it's good then and just rinse and repeat. The initial 1st time get game somewhere cheaper tho. But if walking in off the St go to smyths as they are cheaper.

Woodies and Halfords get away with their prices because they are the only place you can buy that kind of product on a Sunday or at 8 on Friday evening.

How GameStop thought they could keep that model up with Smyths, Tesco Curry’s et al selling the same stuff for less is a bit boggling alright.

Yeah, that's how trading works... I kept all my PS1 games back in the day, easily done seeing as I didn't buy most of them. And while it was great, and hurt me greatly to trade them all in against a PS2, it makes sense. I was never going to play them again, so why hold onto them? If I can get a new release for €35, even at an inflated full price, it's still cheaper than Smyths €60-75. I'm a one and done gamer, I dont do second or subsequent playthroughs unless it would have a completely different story.

And I still reckon if Smyths don't get some Gamestop like competition once GS leaves, they won't keep the prices down. Time will tell I suppose. Plus most the staff manning the game section in the Smyths near me have faces like wet teabags and have zero interest in that section, and it shows. Puts me off. GS staff, for the most part, were nice, usually gamers themselves and mostly knew their stuff. Last time I was in Smyths, I was asking if they had One Piece Odyssey, and she kept going on about Mario Odyssey...

Each to their own and all that. Most people complaining about the €10 price difference between GS/Smyths usually pished plenty down a publicans jacks every weekend.

I would usually agree, but then I traded my PS4 Pro + second controller and some recentish game, and got a brand new XSX+3 months Gamepass for €110. The XSX was still €500 at that time, so trading in definitely works. Now, we have nothing to replace it. Just a low cash offer from Cex, which I assume will get lower once GS are gone because no competition.

I can see adverts/donedeal getting busy.

Huge banner on GameStop site everything must go.

Not going anywhere unless you cut those prices

There won't be any physical shops I can walk into to look for games now. Sad state of affairs really. I live down the midlands. There's zero hope of HMV or whatever opening down here. CEX sell second hand games and consoles so it's not the same. I generally don't buy games on the PS store as unless it's an older game on special offer they're generally overpriced. I prefer physical games anyway. Tesco don't even sell videogames where I am as far as I know and when they did they were always old games overpriced. I have a PS5 and was considering getting an Xbox series X at some stage but not enough good exclusives have come out for it yet to justify buying one. It's a shame really. It was a good reliable place to buy new consoles. I don't really know much about buying used consoles and what condition they're in.

You really should be not hoping for the end of physical media. There are plenty of gamers who still want it. You'll be completely ripped off with massive prices for digital games with a monopoly and no competition. Of course Sony and Microsoft would love that but it would be dire for consumers.

HMV are opening back up here. No idea to what capacity or if they're going to be another Golden Discs. They're advertising jobs online already.