It seems like it was just yesterday that Best Buy and Walmart tried to horn in on Gamestop’s used game profits. As it turns out that little endeavor wasn’t so successful; both stores will be closing used game operations within the month.

In case you don’t recall, it wasn’t actually Walmart or Best Buy handling the used game operations. Both companies outsourced the work to E-play. E-play suspended operations on Monday and will remove its kiosks from the select locations of both retailers within the next three weeks. Neither retailer has plans to branch out with its own system.

It’s a little surprising that things would fall apart so quickly but I never really expected either store to make money. Most of the used game junkies I know have a certain rapport with their local Gamestop employees, who manage to keep the words “we don’t get paid on commission” out of every conversation.

Source: Industry Gamers

Just about a month ago the Xbox 360 802.11n adapter started showing up on various retailers’ websites. It originally listed at $99 with an expected launch date of November 3rd. Well, Tuesday came and went with nary a word about the new peripheral, and the product listings had pretty much disappeared.

The overpriced periph returned today, though, popping up on Costco’s website with an $88 price tag and free shipping. The site lists a November 10th ship date. Obviously things are subject to change, as we found out the last time. I have to say, though, if waiting another month would drop the price to $77, it just might be worth it. I’d almost sort of consider maybe calling that nearly reasonable. But not quite.

Now that Modern Warfare 2 is less than a week away, it seems the world is obsessing over any aspect of the game it can find. We’ve had offensive ads and offensive content, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping the masses of Call of Duty fans from flocking to stores to pre-order. Gamestop told Game Hunters that MW2 is now the most pre-ordered game it has ever sold.

Activision has really pulled out the stops to get people interested in the game. Sure Modern Warfare was great, but it’s more than just the game. Walmart, for example, will be selling copies of the game that have been autographed by the dev team to the first 20 people at each of its stores. Details like that really get the nerdy blood flowing, almost as much as the prospect of knife throw kills. If I had the chance at an autographed copy of the game if it meant cutting out the knife throw, you can bet I’d stick with the knife throw.

If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em. That’s Gamestop’s new take on digital distribution anyway. At an analyst only conference this week, the used game/accessory retailer “detailed” its plans for entering digital distribution. I say “detailed” because the company’s “plan” is, ah, underdeveloped to say the least.

For now Gamestop plans to: 1 – increase in-store sales of online currency cards for online games purchases, 2 – make more games available for digital distro, and 3 – make a “strategic investment” in the market or buy an existing digital distro house. Really smashing ideas guys. Now what’s the actual plan.

Obviously the most concrete idea is number three, but that’s also the hardest to accomplish. Both Valve and IGN (News Corp.) would be reluctant to part with Steam or Direct2Drive. As for other distro houses, nothing else is nearly so well established, and that would mean competing directly with two established and extremely popular alternatives. Back to the drawing board, fellas.

Major Nelson has a little more to say about that Gamestop-exclusive controller that showed up on the used game dealer’s website earlier this month. It’s a partnership between Xbox and Gamestop and still totally hideous. For some reason Nelson doesn’t mention why the controller is the way it is, but if you look at the Forza 3 intro vid it seems pretty obvious. Recognize anything about that R8? Something look familiar?

The controller will come bundled with a play-and-charge kit for $69.99. That’s an awful lot to pay for an awfully ugly controller. It’s even more when you consider the holiday controller bundle, which gives you the same thing (minus the hideous makeover) plus four Xbox Live Arcade titles.

Looks like Microsoft is ready to win back some of the profit it lost when it cut the price of the 360 this year. Gamestop has just added the new 802.11n wireless adapter to its online store for a whopping $99.99. That’s an insane price for a wireless USB adapter, made worse because it’s such a big performance leap for gamers looking to go wireless.

Here’s the copy from Gamestop:

Designed for versatility and ease, the Xbox 360 Wireless Networking Adapter ‘N’ enhances your Xbox 360 experience in the digital home, seamlessly synchronizing with the Xbox 360 system with the newest Wireless N standard. Wireless N offers increased speed, coverage and reliability and can easily stream media-intensive applications such as ‘Games on Demand’, HD movies, videos and music to your Xbox 360 system from Xbox LIVE® or your Media Center PC.

Oh how I long for the day wireless gaming will be reasonable. The adapter will be available November 3rd.

According to a recent post at Joystiq, used game retailer Game Crazy is looking to close 200 stores this month. The company only has 680 stores, so 200 is a massive chunk to shut down. I was especially surprised to read that the video rental locations attached to the game stores will remain open after the game locations shut down.

The company issued this formal statement:

Movie Gallery, Inc. is currently operating in an unprecedented consumer/retail environment. In order for us to continue to best serve our millions of customers across North America we’re addressing underperforming stores and ensuring that there is sufficient [return on investment] associated with each of these stores going forward. The vast majority of our stores will be unaffected by these efforts.

Maybe Movie Gallery should take a look at recent stats for movie rentals. While that industry dies a slow and irritating death, the used game business continues to frustrate publishers with big sales numbers. Perhaps you should refocus your business model?

It looks like Toys R Us is entering the used game business, but not in the way you might expect. Originally it looked as if they would be accepting used games and reselling them, just like your average GameStop, Blockbuster, or Hollywood Video does. As it turns out, though, they’re just buying the game, but they’re even buying the old stuff. As far back as Intellivision old stuff. Yeah, that’s old.

The company is taking the games it purchases back and giving them to a third-party company who refurbs the games for resale. I’m not sure just what that entails, and Toys R Us has yet to be forthcoming with details. As several commenters on Joystiq pointed out, it seems and odd program to establish, particularly because those old games can fetch hundreds of dollars on eBay. For newer games it seems to make some sense. Gamers get store credit for every game they turn in, which in turn means more business for the toy store. But aren’t other companies already doing this? And aren’t they doing it really well?