As GAME falters, another retailer experiences a 2015 holiday downturn

UK-based video game retailer GAME has taken a beating in the stock market after producing soft numbers for the holiday sales season, GamesIndustry.biz reports. Sales for the 21 weeks ending December 19 were down 6.7 percent year-on-year, to £466.8 million ($694 million). 

The company's stock was punished, falling 38 percent in one day, ending at 128.00p ($1.90).

The company mostly laid the blame at the foot of falling sales for the previous-generation consoles, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. New and used game sales for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were up in the UK 19.9 percent year-on-year -- not offsetting a 56.7 percent decline in last-gen games. There's a "faster than expected decline in the market for old format content as well as a slower than anticipated switch to new format content," the company concluded, in its earnings statement. 

However, GAME is not alone in its struggles. GameStop also showed disappointing numbers in the run-up to the holidays, reporting last month that, for the three months ended October 31, it had seen sales below expectations. That company blamed the year's tentpole titles for underperforming. We'll learn more about its holiday 2015 sales next year.

Like GameStop, GAME is betting on non-console products to shore up its numbers, too. Its sales of preowned mobile phones and tablets rose 91.8 percent year-on-year, it said.