Take a deep breath, here comes some more financial bad news from MCV and The Times:
This morning EUK, the entertainment distributions side of Woolworths went bust. 700 redundancies and all the associated crapness that goes with your business falling to pieces.
Ernst & Young have been called in by Deloitte (who are administrating the Woolworths problem) to restructure EUK and attempt to reclaim some of the money owed to it. Principal among those companies owing money to EUK are Zavvi, formerly Virgin Megastores, who apparently owe £106 million. If the debt cannot be repaid then Ernst & Young will become the administrators for Zavvi in an attempt to stop them going under too. Also named in the Times report are Tesco and Sainsbury who owe around £25 million each but this will hardly threaten such large and profitable groups as the supermarket giants who will surely be able to buy direct and hopefully settle their debts to EUK sooner rather than later.
So it would seem that nobody actually pays for stuff any more, it’s all just done on credit. No wonder the economy is going tits-up. I just got my limit doubled on my credit card too. Madness.
What does this mean for us as game consumers? Well, in the short term it might mean a fire sale at Zavvi as they seek to shift stock and pull back some revenue in time to pay some of their debts and avoid administration. That might prompt a price war amongst similar retailers (HMV, Game etc.) so prices might get even more competitive in the run up to Xmas. In the long term it probably means one less retailer on the high street and as we all know, competition is good for consumers so therefore, a lack of competition must be bad for consumers right?
Another news article full of doom and gloom means another joke to lighten the mood:
What’s black and white and eats like a horse?
A zebra.
The old ones are the best…