According to a report in MCV, GAME is to emerge from Administration on Friday as majority shareholder, Royal Bank of Scotland (aka, "The People's Bank" aka RBS) will take ownership.Says the games industry organ, "multiple sources have told us that it will be the RBS-led bank consortium – and not GameStop or OpCapita – that will seal the deal."
For now, well, that's all they have.
On the other hand,
The Independent newspaper's business column reports that, "The turnaround specialist OpCapita submitted another bid to acquire parts of the troubled video games retailer Game Group out of administration yesterday."
It continues "OpCapita is thought to be interested in acquiring the 333 Game stores that remain open. The separate bank-led rescue would see the lenders buy parts of the UK business and hire a management team to run it until Game could be sold.
"GameStop, the US giant, is thought to have bid to acquire Game's Iberian business and its operation in the Czech Republic. Game has 663 shops overseas."
In other news, since the demise (or at least - and let's see this as an RPG - its entry into the "Halls of Moribund") of GAME due to publishers such as EA and Ubisoft refusing to let the group (which includes GameStation) have AAA titles to sell, sales of new AAA titles at HMV have doubled.
Good news for the ancient dog-iconised retailer which had threatened to withdraw from games retailing. Now, howeverkm
HMV’s new games boss Ewan Pinder points out that, "Simon (Fox - CEO of HMV who threatened to cut game sales) also said that we would look to respond to developments in the market, and if there were to be any increased demand from games customers – as we’ve seen recently, then we would obviously look to cater to this and reflect it in our offer – both in-store and online."
Ah, the High Street hots up.