"Record Breaking Pre-orders for Xbox One"

Behold:

Troubled DVD and games rental chain Blockbuster has been bought, saving 2,000 jobs and 264 UK stores.

Administrators from Deloitte, the accountancy firm, announced the restructuring specialists Gordon Brothers Europe had purchased the company for an undisclosed sum.

Blockbuster collapsed in January amid competition from internet firms and the digital streaming of movies and games.

Joint Administrator Lee Manning, said: "Having identified a profitable core portfolio of stores we are pleased to have achieved this sale for creditors.

"Together with the previously announced store sales more than half of the original estate has been secured for ongoing use.

"This transaction provides Blockbuster a future in the UK and we owe a special vote of thanks to all the Company's employees, suppliers and customers for helping us rescue the business."

The Huff and Puff Post, March 2013

Now, I am guessing given the dire straits Blockbuster as a business is in, they need some positive news.

I'm not seeing any mention of price here, nor any actual figures. In fact when I googled this is the web page on Blockbuster's site I found:

Place your pre-order deposit for the new Xbox One console at blockbuster.co.uk and we will email you before the release to let you know the final details of the console, including pricing. At which point you will be given the option to choose between Home Delivery or collection from your local BLOCKBUSTER store.

And obviously we will knock the deposit you pay, off the cost of the new Xbox One console.

£20 deposit

Link

So, no real commitment. Just a £20 deposit. No doubt mentioned to every punter going into the stores. And for people un-savvy enough to still be using Blockbuster, well, you bet they buy a lot of stuff there.

More than 8 units of anything is a weekly record for Blockbuster!

Why are Blockbuster selling something that could potentially depending DRM stuff put themselves out of business.

@cirdain said:

Because what is left of Blockbuster is being run by a company that specialises in actively sizing up what is left of a failed business and trying to either:

a) make it profitable somehow

or

b) sell it's inventory off in a way that makes them a profit on what they paid for the business, while maintaining the illusion of a functioning business.

LOL WUT Blockbuster?

Nothing to see here folks, move along.

@sexualbubblegumx: Arguably there is. It's an early outlier of what is going to happen to the entire games high street retail market eventually, whether that's Blockbuster, Game, Gamestop, HMV or whatever. It'll all be digital direct through online stores soon enough. The console makers are watching the mobile market pretty closely and they want the iOS store / Android marketplace or even Steams model, for good or ill.

Shops for games on the high street? Going away. Sooner rather than later.

Blockbuster? They got probably 4 pre-orders that's 2 more than ps4...

@pynchon: Oh I know the direction Consoles are heading in, thats why I've given up on them in general. I'm sure theres a pretty good amount of people that don't want a console to emulate Steam so while pushing digital copies / punishing physical copies might work in the short term in the long run they're gonna push more gamers away. When the Market crashes due to these companies being arrogant I'm gonna sit back and enjoy watching that trainwreck.

Because its not like people have been saying there's gonna be crash every year for 7 years now.

Like has been said wasn't something similarly said about Nintendo's latest flagship?

@connerthekewlkid: We're at the point where the sky is falling crowd is starting to be proven right. So if you want I can get you a bag of Popcorn and a Dr.Pepper so we can chill and watch the trainwreck together :)

Blockbuster UK was separate from the now dead (?) US chain for many, many years. About eight years ago they basically focused on selling rather than renting, and for a while owned the second biggest games retailer in the UK. They went bust earlier in the year but some remnants of the chain are still around it seems. Looking on the website, they have one branch in my city, Glasgow, and two more in commuter towns well outside the city. (Glasgow isn't an enormous city, but is the biggest city in Scotland, and its greater conurbation has around 1.75m people).

Which makes it kind of weird that the pre-orders were 'record breaking', since they have so few shops left. Maybe on a per-shop ratio basis or something.

I'm not sure where else would be doing console pre-orders just now, mind you. Obviously Amazon et al will be doing them,* GAME obviously (our equivalent of Gamestop), the odd indie shop, probably HMV and maybe Tesco (our equivalent of Wal-Mart, though actually a rival to the Wal-Mart-owned-chain). Maybe all the mentals who want to pre-order a console and don't have the internet had to go to Blockies?

*I have noticed that Americans seem to buy games and consoles from Amazon and other internet retailers far less than we do in the UK. Presumably because your country is so vast, delivery takes a lot longer so you don't get them on release day?

And here, you can preorder you Xbone now with UK Blockbuster :D http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/buy/xbox-one/new-xbox.aspx

I know this is a very strange place to hear this info from which calls into question how valid this is but I have to say anecdotally I have seen a lot more interest in the Xbox One around my college than the PS4.

I worked at a blockbuster at one point in my life, and let me tell you there was always some jackass above me who was always talking about getting preorders for something or another. My store sold lots of stuff , but people preorder very little so what we would do was preorder stuff of fake account and than just sell them to people when the stuff came out. It happens like this,

1. area manager bitches about preorders being down.

2. Homer Smith, fake account, preorders XBONE, everyone is happy and I'm told I'm doing great.

3. XBONE is actually released, you take XBONE being held for preorder and try and sell it to everyone in town. If there is a shortage or long lines you will have no problem. Worst case you have to say dude never came and picked it up and blame it on him gettting better price somewhere else.

4. Once you sell XBONE you take $5 preorder you put down and move it to next thing bosses bitch about taking preorders for.

That must be literally dozens of pre-orders.

Don't touch me you filthy casual

@whitestripes09: Agreed

And to everyone mocking BB i've been renting & pre-ordering games from them for the better part of a decade and to be honest, I prefer them to online renting services, since you're guaranteed to get the game day one.

They may be a relic in an age of digital distribution but if they go under, and Gamestop (GAME in the UK) goes out of business. Then that'll make the process of buying/selling second hand games far more arduous. I'm not saying their prices are fair i'm just afraid of everything going digital because I like to own things, not to just have the right to use them under certain conditions that seem to be changing constantly.

(i'm aware this rant kind of went off the rails but I really do miss BB ;(.. and fuck the XBone)

EDIT: I should mention I used to live about 10 minutes away from a BB store until they shut down a few months ago. The staff were entirely oblivous to the games that were coming out and often forgot to put them on the shelves, but it's better than nothing...

Fine Fine, I'll dust off the good stuff. Fruit Punch Rockstar it is then.

And when they announce the price Microsoft will witness record breaking pre-order cancels.

Blockbuster

Blockbuster - Watermark for new console pre-orders.

Nearly every console has availability issues in the first two or three months of release, and scalpers can make a bundle by selling new consoles for much more than their retail value. I would imagine that's what is happening here.

@mikewarrior: you can pre order the ps4

Completely unrelated to the XBONE, yes, it is.

I really don't see how this is even remotely important, to be honest. It almost feels like news filling in the gaps during a slow-time. Other than that, I'm not surprised. The Xbox One will most likely (99%) make it's way into my living room solely on the fact that it looks like a great all-in-one solution to a cluttered entertainment center. I can't imagine that Microsoft would turn it's nose up at video-games, and neither will Sony; so, I'll have that to look forward to as well.

All I know is that I'm saving up to buy both, but I doubt I will buy the PS4 on launch, and just make use of Xbox One's non-gaming features for my initial justification for the box. Basically the same reason I own both consoles from this generation.

I would not be surprised if they under delivered the Xbox One to create that mythical Wii sales trick...where there aren't enough around so people start running around looking for deals and/or paying higher prices to get one because they're not "generally available". The Xbox One is totally incompatible with my 360 library so it makes it a no sale for me.

Depending on how the preorder works it could be NOBODY has put down more than a few bucks and can walk away form the preorder with their money back if they decided to to buy. Preorders for devices that are often hard to find on launch day is something people game for 'just-in-case' scenarios.

Hey, more power to the people who want want buy a Xbox One. People buy stuff I won't touch with a ten foot pole every day...people buy canned pasta...people buy Hello Kitty Dildos...people buy stinky cheese...people buy Budweiser. These are seemingly rational people, so who am I to say don't consume horrible shit. People bought and are still buying Wii Us while admitting there was/is NOTHING they wanted/want to play on it.

That sounds about right for the type of people who still use Blockbuster.