Redemption: 1.5M Units in the United States in May -07/02/10 at 3:43 AM CDTby Perry Rod

The video game industry today learned that Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption has had one of the biggest openings of any title in this console generation.  In fact, only two titles released in the first three quarters of any of the past few years have done this well in their opening month: Capcom's Resident Evil 5 which was released in March 2009, and Ro...

Take Two Interactive, Inc. CEO Ben Feder: "I don't run my business to... -06/29/10 at 8:56 AM CDTby Perry Rod

In an article published yesterday, Take Two Interactive [NASDAQ:TTWO] CEO Ben Feder stated, “I don’t run my business to please the analyst community.” It’s no wonder, of course, that interactive entertainment analysts are equally unimpressed with Take Two Interactive stock.  Indeed, Take Two management routinely appears to ac...

Take Two Interactive Inc. E3 2010 Performance Recap -06/21/10 at 9:59 AM CDTby Perry Rod

It was nice to finally see Take Two Interactive (NASDAQ:TTWO) on the show floor of E3.  As you walked in, the first thing you saw at the entrance of their booth were lifesize characters from Take Two’s franchise, Bioshock.  The suggestion here is that the franchise is as alive as ever and developers are already hard at work on a sequel, de...

Activision E3 2010 Recap -06/21/10 at 9:35 AM CDTby Perry Rod

Executives at Activision Blizzard Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) had a strong sense of self awareness this year.  The greatest decision they made at E3 was to stay off the floor and keep a low profile (aside from throwing themselves a concert featuring Eminem, Jane’s Addiction and Usher a day before E3 began).   This was in contrast to last year,...

Coming Redemption For Take Two Interactive Investors -04/20/10 at 10:59 AM CDTby Perry Rod

For the last couple weeks, Take Two's (NASDAQ:TTWO) Red Dead Redemption titles for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have showed considerable pre-order interest on the Amazon bestseller video game chart as well as other online charts.  GameStop stores also appear to be involved in a heavy marketing campaign for the title.  This has come as a surpr...

Take Two Interactive's Bioshock 2 Tops Software Sales for February 2010 -03/11/10 at 5:23 PM CSTby Perry Rod

Take Two (NASDAQ:TTWO)'s Bioshock 2 on the Xbox 360 barely beat out Wii's popular New Super Mario Brothers for the month of February, according to NPD.  Activision's November release, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was at number 3 and 6 of the top 10.  Electronic Arts hit the next three spots.  Sony's Heavy Rain comes in tenth.  On the...

Hopes and Dreams Continue at Take Two Interactive Software -12/28/09 at 10:11 AM CSTby Perry Rod

He said in 1993 it was always his dream to run his own media company.  Strauss Zelnick left a nice job at Fox and took a big risk to work on a start-up video game company, Crystal Dynamics.  That risk turned out to be a failure for him at the time but provided him with a resume entry that would prove to be invaluable. When Carl Icahn bought int...

Activision Will Beat Analyst NPD Revenue Estimate Today -12/10/09 at 10:27 AM CSTby Perry Rod

ANALYSIS - Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is predicting that NPD will show that publisher Activision Blizzard is going to bring in 455 million in U.S. revenue in the month of November.  Pachter also predicts that 6 million units of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be sold. These two predictions do not make sense, considering November 2008 ...

Strauss Zelnick: No Regrets, No Responsibility, Take Two -12/04/09 at 12:06 AM CSTby Perry Rod

Take Two Interactive's [NASDAQ:TTWO] Strauss Zelnick has done it again.  In July, I profiled Mr. Zelnick, a man who brags about having no regrets and taking no responsibility for his many failures at Take Two. Today, despite being "proud" of sales of titles such as Borderlands and Take Two's NBA title, Mr. Zelnick specifically pointed out that he wa...

Outrageous: Electronic Arts Inc CEO Riccitello Buys His Own Company a... -11/17/09 at 3:33 PM CSTby Perry Rod

What is it about greedy video game publisher executives? Just two years ago at Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS), with only eight months on the job as Chief Executive Officer, John Riccitello announced a buyout of Pandemic and Bioware studios from his former firm Elevation Partners, of which he was one of the founders.  The purchase price looked astrono...

Gamestop Inc Will Die, They Say, But Publisher Actions Speak Louder T... -10/29/09 at 12:54 PM CDTby Perry Rod

Gamestop’s closest U.S. comparable is Best Buy (BBY).  Analysts for Best Buy Inc. are predicting an 8% year over year EPS growth rate.  Based on current trading prices, BBY trades at a P/E ratio of around 13. Meanwhile, analysts project a 14% year over year EPS increase at Gamestop Inc (NYSE:GME).  With higher analyst growth expectati...