Yesterday HMV unveiled its first Gaming Zone - basically an in-store arcade that you don't have to feed coins into - in its flagship Edinburgh store. I popped along because there was free schwag to see if this new idea will be able to protect the future of games retail, which is under increasing pressure from online shopping and digital distribution models.

What HMV has done is set aside a 2,000 square foot area inside the store and packed it out with 27 Xbox 360 consoles, allowing you to try out a number of current titles for £3 for an hour’s session or £5 for three hours. The lay out was pretty snazzy as you can see from the pics – it’s all translucent green plastic, futuristicy (actually, just bloody uncomfortable) pod-like chairs and curved white plastic, and a lot of rather smart Samsung HDTVs.

As all the consoles are networked up, the first thought is obviously ‘yay – Halo 3 tournies’ and of course HMV had a bank of eight 360’s running a local network game, although because of its 15 rating, it’s tucked away in a little back section that is feels disturbingly like you’re entering the curtained off part of a Soho video store.

The real highlight was the bank of four PGR4 consoles, each one kitted out with a Xbox 360 racing wheel mounted in a Corbeau bucket seat. The first twenty people who turned up also won a free copy of PGR4 and were able to play against the developers. I duly took my turn at taking them on, fancying myself as a bit hot-shit at racing games. They kindly added a wet, night time track to the other nails in my coffin, which include never using a racing wheel before and never playing PGR4 before. Last place swiftly beckoned.

Other games available to play include Skate, Stuntman: Ignition, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 and Ratatouille

If successful, HMV is going to expand the Gaming Zone into other stores across the country. It’ll be interesting to see how well it does; I like the fact that you can actually go in and try full titles before you buy them, especially if you’re just thinking of getting a 360 and haven’t any means of playing the demos. And if you were wondering what all this fuss about online gaming was all about, then this is a pretty good way of dipping your toe in. Unfortunately HMV hasn’t installed is any headsets to go with the consoles (they’d get knicked in seconds anyway) so while you are able to play online, you can’t chat to anyone, but then you can’t hear the torrent of verbal abuse that sometimes goes around either.

The flipside to the coin is that, if you’re really interested in getting a multiplayer session of whatever Xbox game, then the chances are you already have a console, so you’re paying money to play the same thing in the basement of HMV and though it’s good to be sat right next to your opponents, they will probably all be complete strangers anyway. However HMV told me that they will be allowing group bookings in the future and that could be good for getting a bunch of mates, who don’t all have the same console, together for a game.

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