GameStop Looking Forward To ‘Incredible’ 4th Quarter, Sees Boost In Pre-Orders After E3

While GameStop has had some hard times as of late to the point that it was looking for a buyer, the company is a little more optimistic as of late, insisting that its fourth quarter is going to be nothing short of "incredible."

While speaking with GamesIndustry International, vice president of merchandising Eric Bright explained that the company thinks this holiday season is going to be nuts. "I'm looking forward to an incredible Q4," he says. "You're kicking off with Call of Duty and going into Red Dead Redemption 2, then you have NBA and Assassin's Creed and Battlefield and then you're going all the way through December when you're ending up with Smash Bros and you've got Pokémon and Fallout 76 in November - that's a powerful holiday line-up."

But Bright also noted that the company's outlook brightened up a bit shortly following E3, as several announced games have resulted in more pre-orders than expected.

"Nothing beats Nintendo's overall announcements," he says. "Super Smash Bros is jumping right up to the top of the [pre-order] list. We're also seeing great reaction from Pokémon Let's Go, both SKUs, and then of course people are trying to get their hands on the Pokéball [controller] as well.

"Nintendo fans are definitely reacting, but we're also seeing an incredible reaction from the tried and true franchises like Call of Duty. I think when they introduced their battle royale mode that spurred a lot of consumer interest; we're seeing pick-up from that."

But nothing will come close to the forthcoming Rockstar Games sequel Red Dead Redemption 2. "Red Dead is going to be a top game of the year, hands down," Bright predicted. "We had an exclusive Red Dead Collector's Edition that we put up for pre-order and it sold out in a day and a half. I mean, absolutely phenomenal interest in that game. It's Rockstar. Rockstar make great games."

He continued, "You have to remember that game production starts years ahead of time, long before they know that RDR2 or anything else is coming, so they're looking at 'how do I maximise sales of my video game?' And the best way to do that is to move it up earlier in the year. Therefore you're not launching a brand new game that you can't be promotional with around the Black Friday time period. No one enjoys that. So this allows them to have a great period of fantastic sales when the game launches."

We'll see how the holiday season shakes out in the months ahead!