The one single thing that I can advise for you before all others is to research your business plan incredibly thoroughly before putting it into practise. Opening a store like this is a huge investment and carries huge risks if not properly thought out. If, however, you have a sound buisiness plan and a good head for the gaming industry, you could well end up with a modestly profitable venture and a job and a life which actually interests and challenges you, so it could go either way.
If I were in your position (who knows, maybe someday I will be
), there are a number of things I would make good note of:
1) Don't bother competing with the big chains (WalMart, EB, GS, etc.) on their level, they'll be able to sell more new games at a cheaper price than you, and it won't take long for them to run you out of business. If you want a profitable independent store, it has to cater for it's own clientelle. It's simply a matter of finding the right niche to specialise in.
The best niche I can think of is retro gaming. You operate mainly as a pre-owned games store, except, unlike EB or Gamestop, you don't just sell pre-owned GC/XBox/PS2 games, you sell everything you can get your hands on back to the first Atari consoles, focussing on the sort of games, consoles and accessories that collectors and retro-enthusiasts would enjoy. To really get people coming back, though, you'd have to have a very large collection of old consoles and games. Luckily, these can be bought relatively inexpensively over eBay initially and, providing you advertise well that you buy old consoles and games, people cleaning out their attics and so forth could provide you with some real gems for tuppence.
2) Renting out games is barely ever profitable. Much like sales, the big chains are going to run you out of business in no time if renting out new games is your big money-maker, as you simply won't be able to compete in terms of price and selection. Renting out old and retro games just plain isn't worth it, either, considering the prices that they usually sell for, anyway.
3) Putting a couch and big screen TV into your store may attract people to come along and play some games, but it's going to take up a lot of floor space and will attract loiterers, not customers (they may well be customers too, but from my experience these sort of people simply don't contribute enough money to make their habitation worth it). A much better idea, if you were to go with the retro specialist store, would be to get a few of the classic arcade games (Pac-Man, Space Invaders, etc.) off eBay and stand them up for free play, with a price tag just in case anyone wants to buy them. Granted, an arcade machine-buyer doesn't exactly come along very often, but you're getting value by attracting retro-enthusiasts to the store, and you could well make a good profit off the eBay price if you managed to sell one or two.
4) Handle new consoles and releases, but only on a pre-order basis. You're not going to be able to compete on a point-of-sale level with the big guys, so there's no point buying extra inventory that won't sell, but if you've got a group of regulars who keep on top of the new releases as well as your retro offerings, then you might as well offer a pre-order system for them to buy their new games through you as well, just to keep them from having to go anywhere else. The same applies to imports, handle purely on a deposited pre-order basis, it won't make you much money directly, but it'll keep a fair few extra customers in the store, which is always a good thing.
5) You're selling to ordinary people, not GAF members. Granted, you'll probably be targeting the upper end of the games market, but that's still well off the sort of person who posts around here. So just take everything we say with a grain of salt, and remember that it's the customer you'll be trying to please, not us.
. Get some great local support.