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The Wii crushes the competition in November

Okay, so less than two weeks ago, I penned a piece about the video-game wars. Sony (NYSE: SNE), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) are battling it out in the marketplace with their respective consoles. I proffered that perhaps Nintendo might be making too many Wii systems because, at the time of the piece, I noticed that, in my area, stores had plenty of Wii's (and plenty of Wii Fit units, too). If you wanted a Nintendo system, you got it. Well, let me give you an update on how the Wii's are faring where I am, as well as some sales data from November.

I have to say, I turned out to be wrong. And I have to say that those who left comments on my Wii article turned out to be correct. They took me to task for suggesting that the Wii needed to be limited. Indeed, another check of the Wii supply showed that all the stores around me sold out of their inventories. And now, I've been hearing that everyone is desperate yet again to score the console! In fact, here's an interesting thing not about the Wii, but about the Wii Fit. There was one store that had a huge number of them, boxes piled high. They were gone in something like a few days flat, quite unexpectedly. Now, as I cautioned in my previous piece, please don't take this one account as any sort of scientific conclusion about Nintendo's prospects. Nevertheless, I'm amazed at how fast things have changed in such a short period of time.

And now, let's look at some sales figures for the month of November. Once again, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 couldn't come close to the Wii. The Xbox 360 moved more than 830,00 units, while the PlayStation 3 sold over 370,000 systems. Nintendo's sales? Try more than 2 million. Casual gaming truly is king. I don't think there's any doubt that the Wii will dominate in December. And in terms of Sony and Microsoft, I think the latter will wind up in second place. These are predictions that are pretty obvious. No need to go out on any limb.

Continue reading The Wii crushes the competition in November

Not much fun for GameStop in Q3

GameStop (NYSE: GME) didn't have a great third quarter. Total sales increased by slightly higher than 5%. On a GAAP basis, earnings dropped three pennies to $0.28 per share. If you exclude items such as debt extinguishment and foreign currency effects, then adjusted earnings per share on a diluted basis increased 19% to $0.38.

The bottom line may have increased by double digits by GameStop's calculation, but there are a couple reasons not to be too impressed by the performance. First, management missed the analyst's call by three pennies (this particular source is using $0.34 as an adjusted number, and comparing it to the expectation of $0.37). Second, and of higher importance to me, same-store sales decreased 1.8% during the quarter.

Now, it is true that the video-game retailer was cycling off a dramatic 46.3% increase in comps in the year-ago period, an expansion that was driven by Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) incredible Halo 3 phenomenon. I realize it was a difficult comparison. But there's no way that an investor can't be disappointed by that figure. The difference between positive 46.3% and negative 1.8% is rather sizable; I think management should have tried a little harder to deliver a number on the positive side of things at the very least.

Continue reading Not much fun for GameStop in Q3

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Last updated: February 12, 2012: 01:46 AM

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