GameStop CEO J. Paul Raines expects his company to be “dominant” in selling the upcoming wave of new consoles, thanks in large part to its trade-in incentives program. Er, not that he can say anything about there being new systems, that is.
“So we anticipate that we’ll see some new consoles in the next few years”, Raines told A-list daily (opens in new tab). Then he smoothly recovered: “We don’t like to talk about that because our partners get upset if we jump ahead, so we’ll let them disclose that. Consoles are good for us any way you slice it.”
Microsoft kicked the new console rumors off with talk about an upgraded Xbox One (opens in new tab), then Sony made it all very real with tons of leaked documents and other reports about a powered-up PS4 codenamed Neo (opens in new tab). Meanwhile, Raines is hopeful about Nintendo NX (opens in new tab)’s launch in March 2017 (opens in new tab), despite the relatively weak performance of Wii U.
“NX sounds exciting. We’re looking forward to it. [Nintendo is] very innovative in everything that they do. I hope that they come out with something exciting and innovative”. Then Raines followed up with the haymaker: “I think we’ll be dominant distributor of that platform.”
Excited as Raines and the rest of us may be about NX – the only officially confirmed major upcoming console – don’t expect to hear much more about it soon. Nintendo’s E3 presence this year is all about The Legend of Zelda for Wii U (opens in new tab).
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