Jester,

I've got no dog in the EA fight. I know the answer is obvious in terms of agendas and interest, but EA and analysts' acting as though BF Hardline was a solid success puzzles me. Rating was low, like the last COD, only worse. Did it really sell well enough, including the downloads, to justify this treatment? Calling Mirror's Edge a 'core franchise' seems a bit ridiculous  to me as well.  The newswire story I read on earnings (can't paste, still) sounded as though it were an EA press release, in terms of unmitiaged praise for the company and the skill of Wilson's management. It lumped BF along with FIFA together in terms of sales generators. I know that part of this game is, as you've said, to raise the stock price, while insiders sell (the cost of access to mgmt by analysts, I presume - as well perhaps as the corporate investment customers get an easy ride up. Is there more to the motivation of none to few analysts questioning what seems so apparent to people on the board? Or is it just that kind of quid pro quo?