Even as investors reel from the stock-market roller coaster this week, Wall Street is moving on, with plenty of news on the way. Next week will bring headlines about retail and gaming earnings, as well as quarterly reports from News Corp., SodaStream and some newly public Chinese firms.
Electronic Arts is debuting EA SPORTS Season Ticket, an online subscription program that gives gamers a three-day jump on new sports titles, before they hit the stores. The hope is that a trial period will increase purchases, but some analysts are dubious.
Plenty of big names are set to report their earnings in August, including the country's largest cable and satellite television providers, several of China's leading dot-coms, radio giant Sirius XM, car rental companies Zipcar and Avis, and the two biggest video game developers.
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A research firm that tracks video game sales reported that March hardware sales rose, but software sales plunged again. NPD claims that 23% of software sales in 2010 came from apps, but the industry isn't sure that its lagging sales figures can be entirely blamed on apps like Angry Birds.
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.
The short interest in some major technology stocks has increased sharply in recent weeks. The short sellers' view may make sense since these companies have helped drive the NASDAQ recovery.
Electronic Arts says its fiscal third-quarter net loss widened as revenue fell, but adjusted results surpassed Wall Street's expectations -- and an optimistic outlook and stock buyback plan helped push its shares higher.
Activision Blizzard has added video-game competitor Electronic Arts to its $400 million countersuit against two former executives of "Call of Duty" creator Infinity Ward, claiming that EA tried to lure the executives away while they were still under contract with Activision.
U.S. gamers spent about the same amount of money on video games last year as they did in 2009, even as sales of consoles and other hardware took a plunge. Purchases of physical game discs slid 5%, in spite of the record-breaking success of "Call of Duty: Black Ops," but downloadable and social-network games made up the difference.
At least 5.2 million copies of Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty: Black Ops were illegally downloaded between its Nov. 9 release and the end of 2010. All told, more than 19 million people illegally downloaded five of the top-selling games of 2010. As broadband spreads, so does the piracy.
Keep an eye on Falcon Gunner, a new breed of "augmented reality" game. It's far more sophisticated than a typical iPhone game, but still far cheaper than a console game. And that could give major game makers a much-needed opening.
Stores sold 4% less video-game equipment -- including hardware, software and accessories -- in October compared to a year ago, according to research firm NPD Group. While players are spending more on the games themselves, they aren't shelling out for new consoles: Sales of those systems declined significantly.
