There's a lot of talk about Amazon, BestBuy and even Toys-R-Us fighting for GameStop's trade-in business.

I don't think Amazon would be a strong competitor because the kinds of people that trade in video games are hardcore gamers, GameStop's customer base. Amazon's customers are likely to be casual games, who probably wouldn't be trading games. Same holds true for BestBuy and Toys-R-Us.

So I don't think they'll be much of a customer shift away from GameStop.

There's a lot that goes into doing trade-ins, including pricing, demand and inventory management. Among the three, I'd rate Amazon as having the best chance, since they have the database of what used games are bought and sold. BestBuy and Toys-R-Us just don't have this expertise. Still, I don't think Amazon crosses customer bases well with GameStop.

Here's a blog about this for more.

http://phrenzie.com/2009/05/04/gamestop-v-amazon-bestbuy-toys-r-us/

It's just way too early to start spelling doom over this. Sure, the idea could hurt.

1) it's not the idea, but the execution that counts. It won't launch until Winter 09, and many things can change then, like product delays, lack of funding (remember, the business is a start-up)

2) I presume there's a strong demand for this, but economically, is the demand strong enough to offset the cost?

Nonetheless, this COULD be another Blockbuster v Netlfix (remember, people said that no one wanted to wait for DVDs in the mail). It's just too soon to tell.

I also wrote a blog on how video game were recession proof.

Check it out...

http://phrenzie.com/2008/04/28/video-games-netflix-amazon…recession-proof/