GameStop Q2 2026 Earnings Preview: Lower Sales From Store Closures and France Exit Amid eBay Acquisition
GameStop gave investors an early look at how its second quarter shook out, and the headline numbers tell a familiar story with a couple of new wrinkles. The video game retailer said Monday that preliminary net sales for the 13 weeks ended August 1, 2026 will land between $780 million and $800 million, down sharply from $972.2 million during the same period last year. That’s roughly a 20 percent decline, and the company was direct about why: last year’s quarter got a boost from the Nintendo Switch 2 launch, a comparison this year’s results simply can’t match, on top of the ongoing impact of planned store closures and the completed sale of its French operations.
Despite the drop in sales, GameStop’s bottom line actually looks considerably healthier than a year ago. The company expects net income between $290 million and $310 million, nearly double the $168.6 million it reported in last year’s second quarter, and operating income is projected to more than double as well, landing between $150 million and $170 million compared to $66.4 million previously. The gap between falling revenue and rising profit comes down almost entirely to what’s happening on GameStop’s balance sheet rather than in its stores.
During the quarter, GameStop converted a previously disclosed derivative position tied to eBay stock into a direct equity stake, and that move generated roughly $238 million in net gains that flowed straight into net income. As of the end of the quarter, GameStop held about 43.4 million shares of eBay common stock, valued at close to $4.95 billion. That’s a striking figure for a company whose core retail business is shrinking, and it underscores how much GameStop’s financial profile has shifted under CEO Ryan Cohen, who has increasingly steered the company toward investment gains and balance sheet maneuvers rather than relying purely on video game and collectibles sales to drive results.
Not every investment move worked in GameStop’s favor this quarter. The company also reported a roughly $75 million loss tied to digital assets and related receivables, a reminder that its bitcoin holdings and other crypto-adjacent positions remain a source of volatility. GameStop has held a meaningful bitcoin position since making its initial purchase last year, and swings in crypto prices continue to show up directly in its quarterly results, for better or worse depending on the period.
Cash and liquid investments also came down meaningfully, with the company projecting $5.05 billion to $5.07 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, compared to $8.694 billion at the same point last year. Some of that decline reflects the eBay stake conversion, which shifted assets out of cash and into equity holdings, but it also reflects a company that has been actively deploying capital rather than simply sitting on it, a notable change from the more conservative cash-hoarding approach GameStop took in the years immediately following its meme-stock surge.
The store closures referenced in the sales decline aren’t new territory for the company. GameStop has been steadily shrinking its physical footprint for several years, closing nearly 600 U.S. locations in fiscal 2024 and continuing that trend into 2025, when it shuttered close to 500 additional stores before its fiscal year ended in January. The company’s international retreat has followed a similar pattern, with GameStop exiting operations in Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and New Zealand over the past couple of years. France was the most recent departure, following an announcement in early 2025 that the company intended to sell its French business, a process that concluded ahead of this reporting period and is now weighing directly on the year-over-year sales comparison.
What makes this quarter different from GameStop’s usual earnings pattern is the eBay connection running through nearly every number. GameStop has been moving toward a proposed business combination with eBay, and the company’s SEC filings this year have repeatedly referenced that pending transaction as a factor shaping its financial strategy. The conversion of its derivative position into a direct equity stake looks like a step that aligns with that broader plan, giving GameStop a more concrete ownership position in the company it may eventually combine with, rather than a synthetic exposure through derivatives alone.
GameStop also disclosed separately that it amended its convertible notes exchange agreement, a detail tied to $1.4 billion in convertible senior notes the company previously moved to exchange for equity earlier this month. Convertible note maneuvers like this typically reflect a company managing its capital structure ahead of a larger corporate event, which fits with the eBay deal looming in the background.
For a retailer that spent years being defined by its meme-stock reputation and its shrinking mall footprint, GameStop’s current financial identity looks almost unrecognizable next to where it stood even two years ago. Physical retail sales keep declining, in line with the broader industry shift toward digital game downloads that has pressured every traditional games retailer. But the company’s investment portfolio, anchored now by its eBay stake and supplemented by bitcoin holdings, has become the dominant force in its quarterly results, sometimes overshadowing what’s actually happening at the store level entirely.
GameStop said it will release complete second-quarter results on September 8, 2026, at which point investors will get a fuller picture of same-store sales trends, category performance across hardware, software and collectibles, and further detail on where things stand with the eBay transaction. Until then, Monday’s preliminary figures offer a useful preview: shrinking retail revenue, an improving profit picture driven by financial engineering rather than store performance, and a company whose future increasingly depends on what happens with its eBay stake rather than what happens on the sales floor. Full details on GameStop’s financial filings and investor updates are available through the company’s investor relations site, and its preliminary results filing can be found on the SEC’s EDGAR database.
