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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Gamestop Wants LIVE and PSN Connectivity

Basically, Gamestop wants to link your store account directly to your LIVE or PSN ID's to automatically load up points and content that you might buy from them.

It's a plan that, on the surface, makes little sense at best. But look a little deeper and you might be able to make a decent case here.



Gamestop claims that they already are either neck-and-neck with Sony and Microsoft- or even may be a little ahead - in terms of sales. If that's true, then there could be a pair of reasons:
  1. In store purchases, whether it's points cards or content packs, can be made in cash while plastic is obviously needed for a direct online (LIVE or PSN) transaction. Maybe people would rather pay in greenbacks?
  2. Gamestop's Powerup Rewards program gives you bonuses for buying stuff that can be redeemed for bonuses - something that Sony and Microsoft really don't do heavily.
It's still tenuous. There isn't a clear cut need for this sort of thing other than to give Gamestop even more ways to make money and it maybe gives Sony and Microsoft a bump with an additional arena as well but... eh.