GameStop has recently announced that it will no longer be stocking the Microsoft Zune in its stores, due to poor sales of late. Microsoft has now issued a statement in response to the news and it sounds like it doesn’t really care about GameStop.

The Zune was/is of course Microsoft’s answer to the Apple iPod, but despite strong sales from MS fanboys when it was first released, that has now slowed down to a trickle, and the device hasn’t really managed to even dent the popularity of the market leader.

Just two weeks ago, Microsoft announced that the device had hit two million sales, which is impressive until you realise that Apple have sold 10.6 million iPods in the last quarter alone, five times more than the total number of Zune sales.

So now that GameStop are the first retailer to give up on the device, deciding it wasn’t worth devoting shelve space to, some are saying that this is the beginning of the end for the Zune, with Blorge’s own Mike Ferro putting a strong case on this point.

Obviously Microsoft doesn’t agree and in it’s statement in retaliation to GameStop’s decision put a very brave face on the situation. According to Yahoo News, Adam Sohn, director of marketing for the Zune, said:

“We have a set of great retail partnerships that give Zune a strong presence at retail including Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and others,”

“We will continue to invest in deep retail partnerships, and have seen good momentum online and at retail over the last few months including a great response to our recent spring update.”

Which in a nutshell translates as “Screw GameStop, they don’t compare to the big boys.” However, while GameStop may be more known for video games than media devices such as the Zune, it does sell a lot of Xbox 360s, and people who buy those are the same target customer base as Microsoft is after with the Zune.

It’s certainly another kick in the teeth, though I don’t think it’s dead and buried quite yet. To prevent it being a nail in the coffin Microsoft will have to try and up the market share of 4% it currently enjoys against the iPod’s 71%. That’s a big mountain to climb.

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 3:22 pm under Apple, Microsoft, Opinion, Retail.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
Stumble It!