News

New GameStop prototype store opened in Florida

December 21, 2008

A member of the gaming forum NeoGAF has stumbled upon a prototype store for the next generation of the GameStop shopping experience. Although he was told by staffers that no photography was allowed, he surreptitiously snagged a few shots anyway with his cell phone ("I'm a ninja").

First off, it's three times as large as a standard Gamestop, with two separate wood-inlaid counters and high-quality flooring. There were no less than EIGHTEEN separate demo kiosks around the store, including a giant custom kiosk for Guitar Hero: World Tour. They were even demoing Valkyria Chronicles(!). Also littering the outer walls, amongst the games, stood high-definition touch-screen displays that you could browse the store catalog (picture D), as well as manually search for any title to check for a game description, price (both new and used), and whether or not the game is currently in-stock. Both these touchscreen displays and several of the kiosks feature those high-quality audio cone things mounted above. Also, thanks to these displays, I found out Prince of Persia is selling for $40 new due to some Amazon price drop. Awesome. I bought it.