Bringing Movies to Games Retail

The summer is almost upon and that means a drought for games retailers. With only a handful of big releases to keep us going until late August, sales are expected to dry up.
But many retailers, from supermarkets to online stores and general entertainment stores like HMV, have a bright summer ahead of them thanks to a slew of DVD and Blu-ray releases.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, War Horse, Sherlock Holmes 2, The Woman In Black, The Muppets and new seasons of Dexter, The Walking Dead and The Only Way Is Essex are all due on shelves in the next few months, guaranteed to pull in revenue.
True, these properties may have lost some of that launch buzz since their debut on the big or little screens, but games retailers should be clearing shelf space as the home entertainment releases trigger a second sales wave.
“Such releases tend to do well from the halo effect of theatrical release marketing and PR, and sell through is now built into a longer term strategy,” explains HMV’s head of games and technology Ewan Pinder.
“With so much content each week, it means that visual products enjoy high profile merchandising. There is also more interest in back catalogue and promotional campaigns.
“Games by contrast are more new release driven, while demand is also driven by console price.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/featu...-retail/095310