GameStop Opening “Tournament Stores”
By Jonathan on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 11:55 PM PST In Gamer Life, Games Industry
GameStop is apparently expanding the idea behind the little kiosks in most stores by quite a bit. In San Jose, California, the retail chain will be opening its first “tournament store,” a 4,000 square foot shop with the usual gaming items for sale, plus 24 networked gaming stations available for use. The stations will be used for tournaments almost every weekend, with “GameStop system-wide tournament finals occurring at least once a quarter.” The first of these tournaments will occur on December 15 and feature Madden NFL 08. The grand prize is a $1,000 shopping spree at GameStop. So far though, GameStop hasn’t revealed how many of these stores they intend to open.
This could be a pretty cool concept if done right. Only thing is I don’t really see the point of going into a store to play against random people when I can just do that online. Those little game stations might not be getting much action when there isn’t a tournament going on.
Via Next Gen
console only stations? no PCs?
Consoles, most likely only consoles. I don’t think they’ll try PC’s unless they feel a need to put a lot of money into that. Consoles are easier to maintain, no fear of Blue Screens are people bringing in a flash drive and pulling a quickie stealie stealie
I want one in Chicago so I can play some tourneys, I want to have a challenge and then later win something out of it! Its fun!