GameStop today reported its holiday results, saying that sales were down 3.1% year-over-year to $1.77 billion despite strong demand for the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

Unfortunately for the retailer, supplies of the new systems could not meet demand, which it pointed to as one reason for the decline.

It also attributed the slide in sales to regional government-mandated COVID-19 store closures, as well as its "de-densification" strategy that saw the permanent closures of 462 locations from the end of 2019 through October of 2020. (GameStop has announced plans to close hundreds more by the end of March 2021.)

That makes consecutive disappointing holidays for GameStop, as last year's holiday sales were already down 27.5% year-over-year.

However, the numbers weren't all down. GameStop reported that comparable store sales were actually up 4.8%, a number boosted by ecommerce sales being up 309% and accounting 34% of all of the company's business.

On top of that, GameStop said it saw holiday sales up 31% in Australia and New Zealand, where business hasn't been as hard hit by the pandemic.

"Overall, we remain confident in both the positive growth aspects for 2021 driven by our strategy to add new and exciting product revenue streams across all things games and entertainment and the strong demand for the new generation for console-based video game products," GameStop CEO George Sherman said.

"We look forward to executing on both of these areas in 2021 to expand our addressable market and product offerings supported by the many exciting opportunities to leverage our brand, extensive loyalty member base, and improving digital capabilities."

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