When a video game is good, it creates its own everlasting fanbase. Ask any gamer what her or his favorite video game is, and most likely, one of them will be one that hasn't been released in a decade or since the turn of the 21st Century.

Re-releases of these games are sometimes the driving force in this multi-billion dollar industry, and that's what Gearbox and 2K, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive ($TTWO), did recently while Take-Two posted a modest stock gain.

At the PAX East gaming convention over the past weekend, Gearbox announced Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition (GOTY), an upscaled re-release of a game released a decade ago, available for pre-order now for its release on April 3. This also came amid hype for the third part of the series' trilogy Borderlands 3.

Since this announcement, the sales rank of the Borderlands: GOTY at the world's largest video game retailer Gamestop ($GME) averaged 6.5 rating during the weekend of March 30. That's a higher sales ranking than all new releases within the past month, as well as tens of thousands of products at the vendor, indicating that the game sold more copies during over the past weekend than other games on shelves during this time.

Name

Brand

List Price (USD)

Category Rank (Average)

PlayStation Store $10 Gift Card

Sony Computer Entertainment

$10

1.5

PlayStation Store $20 Gift Card

Sony Computer Entertainment

$20

1.5

POP! Marvel: Avengers Endgame - Hulk - Only at GameStop

Funko

$11.99

5

Google Play $10 eCard

InComm

$10

6

$20 Xbox Gift Card

Microsoft

$20

6

PlayStation Store $50 Gift Card

Sony Computer Entertainment

$50

6.5

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition - Only at GameStop

2K

$29.99

6.5

Google Play $50 eCard

InComm

$50

6.5

$5 Xbox Gift Card

Microsoft

$5

9.5

$10 Xbox Gift Card

Microsoft

$10

10.5

Google Play $25 eCard

InComm

$25

13

Nintendo eShop Digital Card $20

Nintendo

$20

15.5

$50 Xbox Gift Card

Microsoft

$50

16.5

Nintendo Switch Pikachu & Eevee Edition with Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu! Bundle

Nintendo

$399.99

17.5

MLB The Show 19

Sony Computer Entertainment

$59.99

18.5

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Seasons of Warfare Edition

Nintendo

$99.99

20.5

Nintendo eShop $10 eCard

Nintendo

$10

21

PlayStation Store $100 Gift Card

Sony Computer Entertainment

$100

23

Yoshi's Crafted World

Nintendo

$59.99

26

Roblox $10

InComm

$10

28

 

Notable recent new releases that Borderlands: GOTY beat included the popular baseball simulation game (and Thinknum Media office favorite) MLB The Show 19, and Yoshi's Crafted World from Nintendo ($TYO:7974).

The only non-gift card product that outranked it was a collector's statue of the Hulk in anticipation of Marvel ($DIS) move Avengers: Endgame, due to release later in April. However, this is a statuette, which has its own market, inventory, and supply/demand separate to video games.

Even without the PC market, which will essentially get the game for free on their devices if they had an older version of Borderlands from 2009, Borderlands: GOTY is still pulling these numbers. Essentially, Take-Two Interactive is showing early signs of a successful Q2 with the re-release of a cult favorite video game, and does so while its stock is trading steadily around $95.

We've seen this happen before with pre-releases. Six months ago, we saw titles like Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Resident Evil 2 Collector's Edition all top the sales-rank charts for August despite all those games having release dates either later in the fall or around the holiday season.

Thus, Borderlands: GOTY is continuing a trend we've seen for the past half year, and what gamers have experienced for years.

As an aside, the game is selling marginally better in pre-orders on Sony ($SNE) PlayStation 4 than on Xbox ($MSFT) One, another sign that Microsoft might still be losing the console wars for this generation.

As Of Date

Category Rank for Borderlands (PS4)

Category Rank for Borderlands (Xbox)

2019-03-31

3

6

2019-03-30 

4

13

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