We wouldn’t count on its retail business going away anytime soon, but it looks like GameStop is now also betting heavily on a digitally-distributed future. To that end, the company has just announced that it’s acquiring both Spawn Labs and Steam-competitor Impulse, the latter of which it’s buying out from parent company Stardock Systems. While Spawn Labs may not be the most familiar name, you might remember its HD-720 set-top box — essentially a Slingbox for your game consoles – which we first checked out way back in 2009 and finally started shipping in early 2010. It sounds like GameStop may have some even grander ambitions for the technology than that, however, as the company’s press release says that it’s now testing a “new consumer interface” that will give users “immediate access to a wide selection of high-definition video games on demand on any Internet-enabled device.” As our pals at Joystiq note, that sounds an awful lot like OnLive-esque cloud-based gaming service, but GameStop unfortunately isn’t offering many other hints at the moment.
