Already the price leader in electronic games, EB enters thefourth quarter with consoles priced at $149 a unit versus $179 lastyear. "Pre-play is our key business differentiator," Griffithssays. "We drive sales of new releases by making them moreaffordable. A customer can bring in used product and buy a newrelease for less than $50," he explains.

In addition to increasing market share by luring morevalue-conscious customers, EB also plans to broaden its appeal toan older demographic. White its previous market was skewed to kidsroughly between the ages of five to 12 or 13 years old, Griffithsbelieves new handheld portable products are designed for an oldergroup.

EB's third-quarter comp store sales rose 14%, compared with a6.5% decline in the third quarter of 2003. Revenues in the mostrecent quarter were up 37.5%, exceeding expectations in the salesof both hardware and software along with the sale of usedequipment. "In the software category, many titles in the strong newrelease line-up exceeded our original performance expectations,"Girffiths says. "In addition, the early release of Sony's newPlaystation 2 model contributed to better than anticipated hardwaresales." A counts of more than 80,000 people lined up for the Halo2Midnight Madness event at one EB Games' store, which bodes well forfourth quarter, according to Griffiths.