• January 8, 2010

While many retailers are reporting that the holiday sales period was somewhat healthier than expected, GameStop isn't one of the them: The chain says comparable-store sales slipped 8.6% for the nine-week period, with total sales coming in flat at $2.86 billion.

"Despite a kick start to this year's holiday selling season with several major title launches, sales momentum was impacted in December by economic weakness in all global operating segments, winter storms at peak shopping periods in December, and unexpected shortages of key products such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Nintendo Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 consoles," the Grapevine, Tex.-based company says in its release.

New video game software sales increased 4% and hardware sales fell 8%, while used-game sales grew by 10%, less than initially forecast.--Sarah Mahoney