Disney is about to pull a secret weapon out of its arsenal that could revive the stumbling video game industry. The Disney Infinity system will feature some of the House of Mouse's most popular characters -- and that's only the beginning.
This should be a good time for Electronic Arts: Madden NFL 13 and The Simpsons: Tapped Out are selling well, FIFA 13 and Battlefield 3 are expected to be big winners, and digital revenue is up 40%. But the outlook for the video game developer and publisher is actually problematic.
Here are some of the items that will help shape the week that lies ahead on Wall Street: Retailers will report; video games will rebound; Howard Stern will re-energize, and Groupon will retrench.
At a time when the music industry is Auto-Tuning its own eulogy and Hollywood has all but given up on DVDs, 1.5 million people lined up at midnight events to score copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, proving that even in an era when more of us want our entertainment for free, some things are still considered worth their price.
Tiger Woods may not have won a PGA tournament in nearly two years, and his last attempt to take home a green jacket from the Masters was a bust, but the virtual Tiger is on a roll: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters has broken all sales records for the Electronic Arts franchise.
Video-game publisher THQ, who makes the popular uDraw tablet and fighting game UFC, has signed a deal with Mattel to bring Barbie, Hot Wheels and other brands to gaming consoles. Can it help give the gaming company -- whose stock has soared 47% in less than two months -- increase its revenue?
Activision Blizzard's "Call of Duty: Black Ops" video game has raked in more than $1 billion in sales since its Nov. 9 release, making it the fastest-selling video game in history -- and one of the fastest-selling entertainment products of all time.
November delivered some welcome news for the gaming industry, with sales of consoles and games surging 8%. And Activision had plenty of reasons to smile as strong sales of Black Ops, the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise -- earned it another spot on the list of best-selling video games.
A 20% plunge in the take for consoles and portable players weighed down overall U.S. video game industry sales, which fell 5% in May. The big drop was due to hardware's lower average prices, though unit sales were roughly flat.
Although Electronic Arts' fundamentals look solid, analysts have not been upbeat about the games giant's upcoming results, citing a "low pick-up" in video game sales. At the end of November, total video games sales were $14.1 billion, down 12% from the same time a year ago.
