During a recent company earnings call, Gamestop have revealed that they will no longer be selling console bundles that include digital game downloads.
“I think what’s interesting to us is that consumers have a pretty strong preference in this” CEO Paul Raines said. “And I think we’ve seen this play out over a variety of ways over the past few years. Consumers prefer those physical bundles, because they know that that disc has value in the trade-in programme over at Gamestop. So we chose not to participate in the digital bundles.”
It should be noted that Gamestop introduced this practice last month with consoles that came bundled with copies of Madden 16. Instead of supplying a download code with the console, like most other retailers would, Gamestop instead chose to supply a physical copy of the game with the console in the bundle.
“We expect that if a game is provided as a promotional item in a hardware bundle, Gamestop will see more of these physical offers than digital pack-ins on upcoming third-party releases” added COO Tony Bartel.
In somewhat related news, Microsoft announced that while the Limited Collector’s Edition of Halo 5: Guardians would come with a download code for the game, purchasers could exchange the code for a physical copy of the game upon purchase, depending on their preference.