Until last week Gamestop had been relying on people who had not transitioned from the Xbox 360 to Xbox One to make use of their Xbox 360 wall of games, and bins of used games. Gamestop usually makes most of their money back from selling used games, because what they buy for $5 they sell for $40. This is very frustrating for those rare instances where a person sells a game to Gamestop and then goes to buy it back, only to be charged up to 10x the amount it was sold for. There have even been other companies, and well known chain stores that have jumped into the used game market late in the last gen consoles lives.
When recently going into a Gamestop I noticed that the used Xbox 360 games had been marked down a little more than usual. The price drop perked my interest, but since I now stick to my Xbox One I didn’t see any need to purchase them. I also have Gamefly, so I can just rent old games without feeling bad about sending them back. Looking back I wonder if people who don’t rent games should have taken advantage of the temporary price drop, because Gamestop may be raising the price again.
During E3 last week, Microsoft announced that Xbox One would be able to play Xbox 360 games. At this time only preview members had this ability on their Xbox One’s, but later this Fall there would be a big group each month that would be made compatible. Now all of those Xbox 360 games that you didn’t finish and were sold off to buy the Xbox One will now be playable again, and Gamestop will be the one who profits. Given a second wind to Xbox 360 games means that Gamestop’s used Xbox 360 games have another chance to be bought. Does this mean that the used Xbox 360 games will go back up a few dollars each if the sales start to rise? No one knows for sure as of right now, but later this Fall you may be seeing used games reaching new game prices again.