GameStop digital sales up, profits down

GameStop's mobile and digital businesses are growing, but not enough to make up for a shrinking market for packaged games, the company revealed today as part of its latest financial report.

The company did not provide a specific figure for digital sales, but noted this sector was up 23 percent year-over year, while mobile raked in $12 million for the period.

In all, for the three months ended April 28, GameStop posted total global sales of $2 billion, down 12.2 percent from the $2.28 billion recorded during the same time last year. Net income for the period hit $72.5 million, a dip from the $80.4 million notched a year ago.

New game software was the biggest contributor to GameStop's bottom line during the period, accounting for $731.1 million and 36.5 percent of total sales. The next most significant contributor was used software and hardware sales, which accounted for 30.9 percent of total revenue, or $619 million. New game hardware sales for the period hit $348.6 million, and made up 17.4 percent of total revenue. GameStop's "other" category, which houses its digital and mobile businesses, accounted for the smallest piece of the pie, representing 15.2 percent of total sales with a haul of $303.5 million.

Looking to its current fiscal quarter, GameStop said it expects store sales to fall 11 percent to 5 percent, with full-year revenue expected to range from down 5 percent to flat. Additionally, in a postearnings financial call, CFO Robert Lloyd revealed that ArenaNet's long-awaited massively multiplayer online role-playing game Guild Wars 2 has slipped out of the company's current quarter, meaning it is now expected to arrive sometime after July.