GameStop Says It 'Rises Above Recession'

Video game-oriented mega-retailer GameStop announced today that the nine-week 2008 holiday season brought in 22.3% more cash than that of 2007.

In the press release, titled "GameStop Rises Above Recession," the retailer revealed a total 2008 holiday sales take of $2.85 billion, compared to 2007's $2.33 billion. The most recent nine-week holiday period ran from November 2, 2008 to January 3, 2009.

Xbox 360 and Wii led hardware sales, while Call of Duty: World at War, Guitar Hero World Tour, Gears of War 2, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, and Wii Fit were listed as the five best-selling games of the holiday period.

Of that $2.85 billion revenue, new video games made up 43.8% ($1.24B), used game products sat at 19% ($543.3M), and new game hardware accounted for 23.8% (680.2M), with the remaining cash attributed to "Other."

In addition, the company noted that December 26, 2008 was the "third highest sales volume day in GameStop's history."

As this wasn't a quarterly report, GameStop did not provide a profit breakdown, which usually illustrates strong profits on used games. Despite accounting for 26.1% of the company's total sales in Q2 2008, used games sales made up 49.7% of Q2 profit.