Wedbush Morgan Upgrades Gamestop (GME) -10/08/09 at 10:59 AM CDTby Perry Rod

Calling Gamestop's guidance "conservative" and citing valuation, Wedbush Morgan senior analyst Michael Pachter raised his rating and price target for Gamestop to $34 and "Outperform". "We expect industry sales to return to positive territory in September, and think that GameStop is well positioned to recover as well. " Gamestop is up around 3% this mornin...

Why THQ Inc. (THQI) is Unlikely To Be A Buyout Target And Why dealRep... -09/22/09 at 11:49 AM CDTby Perry Rod

Take Two (TTWO) Interactive, a company with a major video game sports division, received a buyout offer last year from video game sports giant Electronic Arts (ERTS) before the market storm.  Today, there is a rumor that THQ (THQI), whose list of internal intellectual property is small and comparatively unimpressive in terms of sales volume, is recei...

Another Take Two Scandal, or Just Another Wall Street Scandal? -09/15/09 at 11:14 AM CDTby Perry Rod

An unusual event occurred at 4:01 PM on September 1st, 2009 as video game investors were staring intently at their Dow Jones Newswire streamers.  Take Two Interactive (TTWO) was to announce earnings on that day and news hit the streamer, “Take-Two Swings To 3Q Loss; Co Cautious On FY Outlook.”  Opening up the report revealed an exten...

Take Two Interactive Burns Through 300 Million Cash -09/02/09 at 12:10 PM CDTby Perry Rod

It was just one year ago that Take Two (TTWO) Interactive Software Inc. announced that it had accumulated 339 million dollars in cash from the success of Grand Theft Auto 4.  They had no debt. Today, just twelve months later, they have managed to burn through almost all of that cash.  With a recent 5 million dollar cash settlement and 138 millio...

Xbox 360 Pricecut Welcomed By Interactive Entertainment: Activision, ... -08/24/09 at 8:36 AM CDTby Perry Rod

At the GamesCom conference last week, eyebrows were raised when Microsoft did not announce a pricecut of the 360 after Sony announced their PlayStation 3 console's drop to $299. Over the weekend, however, a Wal Mart (WMT) advertisement distributed by video game website Kotaku and also another regional chain advertisement appear to confirm the coming of a ...

Retail Investors Outperforming Professionals With Citigroup, Ford, an... -08/21/09 at 11:14 AM CDTby Peter York

In today's market, it's not the professionals who are celebrating as much as the retail investors.  Consider three stocks that seem to show up in retail portfolios everywhere: Citigroup Inc. (C), Ford Motor Company (F), and Sirius XM Radio Inc (SIRI).  Institutional ownership in these stocks are well under 50% which suggests a significant retail...

Sony PS3 Pricecut, Welcome News for Activision, Electronic Arts, Game... -08/18/09 at 12:57 PM CDTby Perry Rod

There is a universal sigh of relief in the interactive entertainment industry today as Sony has just announced at the end of their Gamescon 2009 presentation that the new PlayStation 3 Slim will now be $299 (299 euros, 29980 yen).  That will also be the new price for all PlayStation 3's for sale on the market starting tomorrow, August 19, 2009. Kotak...

Activision Executives Sell Millions of Shares While Company Buys Back... -08/17/09 at 10:41 AM CDTby Mahyar Hashemi

Activision Inc. (ATVI) upped their stock buyback program from 1 to 1.25 billion dollars worth of shares on August 5 as a part of their first quarter earnings report announcement.  At the same time, the company’s CEO Robert Kotick was still busy selling stock, including recent sales disclosed late in the day to the SEC on Friday, August 14.&nbsp...

Electronic Arts CFO Says EA No Longer Interested in Take Two Interactive -08/11/09 at 3:18 PM CDTby Perry Rod

In response to a question at the Pacific Crest Technology Leadership Forum in Vail, Colorado earlier today, Electronic Arts (ERTS) Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown offered EA's most definitive statement yet on a possible deal between Take Two (TTWO) Interactive Inc. and EA. "That's a deal whose timeframe has, you know, come and long gone. And so we're j...

Summer Meltdown For The Video Game Industry -07/30/09 at 8:18 AM CDTby Perry Rod

Sony and Nintendo reported disappointing numbers in Japan overnight. Nintendo Wii sales dropped 57% year over year from 5.17 million to 2.23 million units worldwide.  Sales of PlayStation 3 dropped 31% year over year from 1.6 million to 1.1 million units worldwide.  PS3 software sales were down 35% in that same period.  The PlayStation Port...

No Regrets, No Responsibility: Strauss Zelnick, Take Two Interactive'... -07/20/09 at 11:03 AM CDTby Perry Rod

“I don’t engage in regrets,” he said in an interview with CNBC last month. It was a revealing statement by the chairman of Take Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO). A humble man may have had some regrets, given the dramatic fall of the company’s stock.  But humility is almost certainly not a quality requirement for one who engages in...