Take Two Interactive, Inc. reported earnings that at first glance looked unusually strong, guiding a full year earnings-per-share outlook of $2.00 to $2.25 versus a prior outlook of about half of those numbers. Even analysts were confused with several asking for help on how to compare the earnings and revenues numbers to prior numbers and outlook.

The video game makers have altogether changed their financial metrics to comply with guidance from the Securities and Exchange commission regarding how they report deferred revenues. The timing looks good for Take Two, since it may mislead some investors into thinking that what is supposed to be a negative growth year (from $1.96/share to $1.32/share) is suddenly a positive year over year growth period (from $1.96/share to $2.00-$2.25/share).

For the current quarter, Take two actually missed EPS estimates due to higher costs while beating revenue estimates. They reported (.34) versus (.29) expectations, and 272.6M revenue versus 259.8M expectation. Their next quarter guidance was for .25 versus .26 expectation and they guided revenue at 392M versus 342M. For the full year, they are guiding in line with their previous guidance and slightly below analyst expectations ($1.09 versus 1.30; 1.6B versus 1.64B).

Activision and Electronic Arts put out similar changes in reporting, but Take Two's changes appear most dramatic.