“The economics of physical product is so bad that the only way to solve it is if none of us gets paid – the retailer, the guy who made the music and everyone in between – until will sell it,” he says. “Because that way the cost of the product is pennies and we can buy a lot more, I can worry less about shrink, I can make sure product is always on the shelves, and if we lose a few for whatever reason, they only cost pennies to replace. “We currently go through this terrible dance where we buy product with some returns rights, and then at the end of it we have a big fight and eventually they will take it back. They will spend money taking it back, refurbish it and then count and crush it. And then down the line they send the artist a reverse royalty statement. Why do any of that? It is a nonsense way of doing it.
“I’ve told the music guys that the problem with in-store space is that it is hard to keep it, it is even harder to get it back. Every day we are talking about it and not doing anything, it is getting worse.”
WHAT ABOUT GAMES? But what does this have to do with the games industry? Salter thinks there are lessons to be learnt from movies and music.
He has a few suggestions
already. He believes consumers who own multiple platforms
shouldn’t have to buy a game more than once. For example, when gamers buy FIFAon Xbox 360, they should be able to access that game on PS3, too. It may sound fanciful, but only this
week Portal 2on PS3 comes bundled with a code to access the PC version. “We have had a few conversations with the third party games publishers about bundling rights for more than one platform,” he says. “And the answer is in principle ‘yes’. But we need evidence. We’d need to research how many people have more than one platform. Maybe everyone has only got one platform. I am not saying we have all the answers. But it might be worth looking at things differently in terms of how people purchase content.”
Tesco has doubled its market share in games and
entertainment head Rob Salter wants to double it again
www.mcvuk.com
April 22nd 2011
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