GameStop’s Ryan Cohen calls physical game sales ‘totally irrelevant’ and pivots every question back to eBay

TL;DR

Cohen called physical game sales irrelevant on Bloomberg TV, said collectibles drive GameStop now, and kept steering back to his rejected eBay bid.

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen dismissed the decline of physical video game sales as “totally, totally irrelevant” to the company’s business in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Thursday. Cohen was responding to Sony’s announcement earlier this month that it will end physical disc production for new PlayStation games in 2028. “It doesn’t matter at all,” he said.

The numbers support the claim, at least partially. In GameStop’s most recent quarter, software sales, which include both physical and digital copies of games, accounted for just 18 percent of total revenue. Collectibles, driven by trading cards from games like Pokémon, have overtaken every other category and now make up 41 percent of the business.

Cohen used the interview to reiterate that his long-term strategy centers on acquiring eBay, where GameStop submitted a roughly $56 billion bid that eBay’s board rejected in May. He said a combined GameStop and eBay could be “a $1 trillion business” with substantial compatibility in the sale of physical goods and collectibles. GameStop has continued buying eBay shares and now holds a stake of nearly eight percent.

When asked about demand signals for Grand Theft Auto VI, which launches November 19 and is expected to generate more than $5 billion in its first week according to analytics firm NewZoo, Cohen deflected. “I want to go back and talk about eBay,” he said. The pivot was revealing: the biggest game launch in history is four months away, and GameStop’s CEO would rather talk about an acquisition that has already been rejected.

Cohen’s indifference to physical game sales reflects a transformation that has been underway for years. Digital downloads now account for 85 percent of full-game sales on PlayStation, and GameStop has closed more than 1,300 stores over its past two fiscal years. The company’s pivot to collectibles and its ambition to become an e-commerce platform through eBay represent Cohen’s bet that GameStop can survive the death of the business that created it.

Whether that bet pays off depends entirely on eBay. Cohen has built a $9 billion cash position through convertible debt and meme-stock-era share sales, but eBay’s board has shown no interest in a deal, and the financing gap for a roughly $56 billion acquisition remains substantial. Physical game sales may be irrelevant to GameStop, but Cohen has not yet proven that anything else is relevant enough to replace them.

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