It has been eight long years since Microsoft launched its Xbox 360 games console on to the market, and seven years since the world was introduced to Sony's PlayStation 3. To put that in perspective, iPhone was not yet on the market, Facebook was virtually unheard of in Europe and the mobile app was non-existent.

This November will see both companies launch their latest consoles and no retailer is better prepared than GameStop, according to its chief executive Paul Raines.

Raines, who was in Dublin this week for a “Gaming Gathering” event at the RDS, said the company expects profits to be up 45 per cent in the next quarter, compared to last year, thanks to release of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

And if history is anything to go by, GameStop will undoubtedly do well out of the two new consoles. The video game retailer’s market value soared 50 per cent between the last Xbox iteration in November, 2005 and the release of the PlayStation 3 a year later. Its share price then doubled in the 12 months after the PS3 launch which saw unprecedented demand.

This time round, GameStop is in an even better position to cash in on the popularity of the two consoles, having grown their number of stores worldwide by nearly half since the debut of the last Xbox.

“We have the biggest market share because a lot of other video game retailers are closing down. We are the largest distributor of Xbox in the world. We have more than 6,000 stores in 15 countries worldwide,” Raines said.

The release of the two consoles is good timing for GameStop, which has suffered a brutal nine quarters without much in the way of new video game products.

“We hope the video games industry will grow by 20-25 per cent in the US in the next year. The forecast for Ireland will probably be the same.”

Raines is expecting this to be the “largest console launch in history” adding that staff members are well versed on the two products.

“We are having gaming events all over the world like this week’s one in Dublin. I actually just came from one in Italy and I’m going on to another in Paris. At them, we have smaller sessions with store managers to teach them specifically about Xbox One and PS4.”

He declined to say how many pre-orders the retailer had received “for competitive reasons”, but said he hoped it would bring some much-needed luck to GameStop which has seen a slide in sales over the past five years.

Raines joined the company as chief operating officer in September 2008, before being promoted to CEO in 2010. “I joined at the worst time. The economy around the world was in collapse and our industry was in decline. It has declined by 38 per cent since its peak in 2008.”

“We have survived, though, as we have driven a huge amount of change both internally and externally. We buy old video games and sell them. We sell phones and tablets. We sell downloadable content.”

The retailer has dedicated significant amounts of time to cultivating a “community of gamers” launching its PowerUp loyalty rewards programme in 2010. The programme has since garnered more than 25 million members worldwide.

“We also want to build up a community around stores. To do this we have midnight launches and events with food and parties. We feed people’s excitement about games.”

It has also branched out into new retail business, most recently with Simply Mac, an authorised retailer and repairer of Apple products. He said Gamestop has responded to the digital threat by embracing it, for nothing makes bricks fall faster than clicks.

“We moved into the digital and mobile arenas to reinvent ourselves. We have also created new ways to merchandise and sell content.”

The move paid off with the company bringing in digital revenues close to $700 million this year, according to Raines, who said mobile revenues will probably top $250 million.

“Those businesses didn’t exist 2.5 years ago and this year they will make us nearly $1 billion. That’s pretty good going.”

Overall, the business is turning over $10 billion annually, with used video-games accounting for a quarter of overall revenues. “We put a billion dollars in people’s hands by exchanging old games last year. Old games help new games, as people trade in one for the other – 15 per cent of new video games sales are funded by used games.”

Raines said a lot people think digital gaming is cannibalising physical gaming, but he disagrees. “Consumers are drawn towards innovation. There was no Facebook or iPad when previous consoles were launched; they have few/no interactive features or social features.”

“Take, for example, Grand Theft Auto. GTA V is a physical game, but it will have digital content in the future. ”

When it comes to innovation at the retailer, Raines says the best ideas have come from shop managers. “No great ideas start in the boardroom. They all start on the shop floor. For example, it was one of our managers in Fort Worth, Texas who said ‘we take consoles back and refurbish them, why can’t we do the same with phones?’. Now we do that.”

In 2009, Gamestop acquired a majority stake in Irish company Jolt Online Gaming, with reports at the time saying the retailer intended to invest between €15 million and €20 million in Jolt.

However, Raines said Gamestop had divested Jolt and “learned a lot from it”.

“We have incorporated learnings from that to what we are doing with our online gaming platform Kongregate.”

Raines said shops in Ireland were back on track after a tough period, primarily caused by upward only rent reviews. The retailer currently has 51 stores in Ireland as well as its North European Headquarters. However, he hopes to expand on this.

"We met with Richard Bruton yesterday as we'd like to expand our operations here. Our support centre for Northern Europe is located here, but we'd like to have other things here too."