Both Sony and Microsoft have made motions towards what comes next for the Xbox and PlayStation brands, with the former literally announcing their intentions at E3, while the latter has made subtler nods to the PS4 beginning the twilight of its life. Nobody is quite sure when this next generation will come around, but GameStop thinks that it will be just dandy when it does.
Gamespot speaking to GameStop Merchandising head Eric Bright during E3 2018 spoke to how big console transitions always are for the company, specifically citing the Nintendo Switch launch as a huge success for the company, which was selling them faster than they were getting them in. Bright expects the PS4 and Next Xbox to be similar.
“When is always the big question. Phil Spencer announced they are working on a new Xbox, which I think everybody expects. When, I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But like every hardware transition that occurs–and GameStop has gone through many of them in the past–it’s a tremendous time for us.”
“It’s going to be a feeding frenzy that I expect to drive tremendous traffic into our stores,” said Bright. The retailer’s position with the second hand market is expected to play into this frenzy, as the retailer usually offers incentives to upgrade, which Bright says you can expect to continue.