Here's more of me flexing my writing muscles. I make some points about what the new GameStop branded tablets mean for both the tablet and the gaming market. Here's a little bit.

Today, in select US stores, games retail giant Gamestop released an array of “gaming” tablets from manufacturers Samsung, Asus and Motorola, all which come with a bundle of six pre-installed games and range in price from $329.99 to $429.99. Buyers can also opt to purchase a proprietary GameStop branded wireless controller for their new device for an extra $49.99.

These tablets signify GameStop’s entry into the tablet ecosystem, still ruled by Apple’s iPad. But, with a focus on branding their Android devices as platforms for gaming, there is a chance that GameStop may be able to carve out a niche for itself in a market already flooded with various SKU’s by most major hardware corporations.

See the rest at my blog: http://gamesbizguru.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/gamestop-expands-market-strategy-with-release-of-android-tablets/

Also, feel free to leave comments, criticism etc.

Night, duders.

I heard rumors about this awhile back. I'm really interested to see where this goes.

Yeah, I don't think it's a bad move really. All they're really doing is branding tablets that pretty much already existed with their name and releasing some ported software to go with it. Not that much of a big deal for them if it fails, really.

Gamestop tablets could have the DRM built into them to make digital trade-ins a reality.

I've got well over 200+ steam games and play maybe a dozen per month. I'd love to be able to trade some of those in for credit. I don't see it happening with Steam anytime soon but Gamestop is another story. Still too pricy to dive right into but this is very interesting and it's now on my radar.

The whole idea of trading in games virtually just baffles me. Is it just beneficial to the service's servers that one player can directly transfer their game to another? Obviously the player receiving the game "second hand" has to pay full price, as there's nothing to distingush a "used" game from a new one. Or is it all just marketing spin to get people to use the service?

@Jerr said:

The whole idea of trading in games virtually just baffles me. Is it just beneficial to the service's servers that one player can directly transfer their game to another? Obviously the player receiving the game "second hand" has to pay full price, as there's nothing to distingush a "used" game from a new one. Or is it all just marketing spin to get people to use the service?

Games would never be sold as "Pre-owned" that's just silly. If done properly, and I mean properly, then the recycled digital titles would not give you credit, but rather a discount on your next purchase. This way the retailer never has to put new products on sale so publishers get the maximum return off new sales, and the only ones receiving a discount would be previous customers who are already invested in the service.

some random thoughts

I hope this venture fails miserably.