If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Report: GAME selling 3DS consoles and games bought elsewhere as "pre-owned"

Pre-owned 3DS consoles in stock at GAME on launch weekend? If you called monkeyshines, you may be right.

According to information received by Eurogamer, British retailer GAME encouraged its staff to nip over the road to Tesco and buy up available 3DS stock with the cash from the registers.

The newly-purchased consoles and games were then to be sold as pre-owned stock.

Tesco had offered the handheld bundled with one game for £209.90 on launch day. GAME's own bundles were slightly lower priced, but featured less desirable launch titles.

This strange tactic was apparently employed to counter limited stock, with the "pre-owned" bundles to be sold at full price due to "expected supply shortage". Employees were reportedly warned not to begin offering the "pre-owned" stock until the store's original supply ran out.

GAME gave a statement on the matter saying it had authorised the purchases to help stores build up stock.

"Some of our stores wanted to move quickly last weekend to build their pre-owned stocks of 3DS at the same time as their local competitors, so we gave them a process to do that.

"It was not mandatory, and happened in small volumes."

However, one GAME employee said a store had been reprimanded for not participating.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Sign in and unlock a world of features

Get access to commenting, homepage personalisation, newsletters, and more!

Related topics
About the Author
Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

Contributor

Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

Comments