Disney has registered numerous domains for something titled Star Wars: Attack Squadron. Whether it’s related to games, television, film, or something else entirely remains to be seen, but the lengthy list of domain registrations discovered by Fusible shows that Disney is covering every base it can.
Electronic Arts, meanwhile, is the current owner of the domain AttackSquadron.com, which it registered in March 2000. EA last updated the domain on March 27 of this year, two months prior to its announcement of an exclusive Star Wars video game partnership with Disney.
U.S. stock index futures point to a higher open on Wall Street on Tuesday, ahead of the publication of the House Price Index and corporate earnings statements from tech majors Apple, AT&T and Electronic Arts.
Futures on the Dow Jones industrial average(^DJI) were up 0.3 percent, while futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index (^GSPC) were up 0.1 percent and those on the Nasdaq 100 index were up 0.3 percent.
Investors will also be turning their attention to the publication of the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index at 9 a.m. Eastern time. The index provides the monthly average change in house prices across the country or a certain area, using data provided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The index is expected to nudge up to 0.8 percent in May, from 0.7 percent recorded in the previous month.
In addition, a number of major companies, including United Parcel Service (UPS), Altria Group (MO), Lockheed Martin (LMT), MGIC Investment (MTG), Wendy’s (WEN) will announce quarterly earnings before market hours. Altera (ALTR) and Broadcom (BRCM), along with Apple (AAPL), AT&T (T) and Electronic Arts (EA), will announce their earnings after markets close.
European markets were trading flat after climbing higher earlier Tuesday, as Asian markets rallied following recent reports from China indicating Beijing might take measures to support the country’s economic growth, and the Japanese government upgraded its outlook of the country’s economy for a third consecutive month.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.1 percent, London’s FTSE 100 was flat, Germany’s DAX-30 was up 0.1 percent and France’s CAC-40 was trading up 0.05 percent.
In Asia, Chinese stocks led a rally in the region’s markets, with the Shanghai Composite index surging 2 percent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index soared 2.3 percent. Shares jumped after several local media reported that Premier Li Keqiang, at a cabinet meeting last week, gave an assurance that the government won’t allow China’s economic growth to fall below 7 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei ended up 0.8 percent after the government said that the recovery in the world’s third-largest economy had turned self-sustaining, MarketWatch reported. South Korea’s KOSPI Composite index rallied 1.3 percent, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.3 percent and India’s BSE Sensex was trading up 0.8 percent in late-afternoon trade.
Hollywood actress and producer Felicia Day has established a faithful following from her days in geek hits like Fox’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Syfy’s Eureka. One of the YouTube pioneers with The Guild and the original Dragon Age Redemption video series based on Electronic Arts-owned BioWare’s Dragon Age franchise, Day is now leading the charge at Geek & Sundry, which just premiered April 2 as a YouTube premium channel.
The strategic repositioning of Electronic Arts continued today with the announcement that its Facebook-based social games Sim City Social, The Sims Social and Pet Society will be shut down in June.
Uh-oh. Walt Disney is killing part of the Star Wars franchise it acquired in October for $4 billion. The good news? Like Obi-Wan Kenobi, the dead will rise soon enough, and in perhaps a more powerful form.
Specifically, Disney has closed 31-year-old game-development division LucasArts and laid off some 200 employees who worked there, The Wall Street Journal reports. New Star Wars universe games — presuming any are under consideration — will be published elsewhere.
It’s a good move, says Tim Beyers of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Supernova in the following interview with The Motley Fool’s Erin Miller. Researcher NPD put LucasArts’ revenue at just $55 million last year, down sharply from $175 million in 2006.
What’s more, Tim says, Disney is the world’s largest brand licensor and as such could extract good terms from the likes of Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard , both of which have long, successful histories with developing games around licensed brands. The possibility of such a deal may help explain why Disney stock reached another new high this week.
Are you more bullish on Disney’s prospects after seeing this news? What about Activision and EA? Please watch this short video to get Tim’s full take, and then leave a comment to let us know whether you’d buy or sell Disney stock now, and why.
It’s easy to forget that Walt Disney is more than just the House of Mouse. True, Disney amusement parks around the world hosted more than 121 million guests in 2011. But from its vast catalog of characters to its monster collection of media networks, much of Disney’s allure for investors lies in its diversity, and The Motley Fool’s premium research report lays out the case for investing in Disney today. This report includes the key items investors must watch as well as the opportunities and threats the company faces going forward. So don’t miss out — simply click here now to claim your copy today.
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EA has been named the “Worst Company in America” by Consumerist for the second year in a row. The publisher beat Bank of America with 78% of the vote to claim the title, which Consumerist refers to as the Golden Poo.
“Following last year’s surprise Worst Company In America victory by Electronic Arts, there was hope that the video game giant would get the message,” Consumerist posted. “Stop treating your customers like human piggy banks, and don’t put out so many incomplete and/or broken games with the intent of getting your customers to pay extra for what they should have received in the first place. And yet, here we are again, with EA becoming the first company to ever win a second Golden Poo from Consumerist readers.”
The company just expanded the list of devices that it accepts for trade-in cash or store credit. New names from Samsung, BlackBerry, and Motorola have all been added to the list, which already includes the Apple iPhone 5, and tablets like the Galaxy S3. And to add icing to the cake, GameStop is even offering a bonus for shoppers who give up their old devices within the next few weeks.
Photo courtesy of GameStop.
Don’t call it “junk” It’s part of a push by the company to get deeper into the used electronics business. That was actually one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dreadful 2012 for the retailer. While sales shrunk in its core businesses of used and new video game hardware and software, GameStop’s mobile business thrived. It added $100 million of revenue in just the fourth quarter.
It turns out that hawking devices can be profitable, too. The company’s mobile sales logged a 29% profit margin last year. Sure, that’s much less than the 48% mint that GameStop makes off of used video games. But it still beats the margin it earned from new video game hardware and software, and it pulled GameStop’s overall gross profit up for the year.
And mobile device trade-ins are a good way to boost GameStop’s other businesses, as well. They increase traffic at the company’s locations. By promoting store credit, mobile trades also give shoppers more reasons to shell out for a new console or a used video game while they’re in a GameStop.
Trading up The company managed to handle over 1 million electronic device trades in 2012, its first year in the business. But it thinks there’s much more where that came from. With major product refreshes expected from Apple, Amazon, and others, GameStop sees used electronics growing into a $1.6 billion market in 2013. And in an effort to grab more of that growing industry, it’s planning to double the number of stores it has set up to hawk mobile devices this year.
While Activision and Microsoft have been taking the headlines when it comes to console gaming, Fools following the gaming sector would do well to also keep tabs on Electronic Arts. We can help. Our new special report breaks down the risks and opportunities facing the company to help you decide if EA is right for your portfolio. Click here to get your copy now.
var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; …read more
The following video is from Wednesday’s MarketFoolery podcast, in which host Chris Hill and analysts Jason Moser and Alex Scherer discuss the top business and investing stories of the day.
Shares of social game company Zynga rose after the company announced that it would launch two new, real-money gambling games in the U.K. Zynga’s games will include ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino. Should investors bet on Zynga? Should video game companies like Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts get in on the gambling action? In this installment of Investor Beat, our analysts discuss Zynga’s big bet and the future of gaming.
Zynga’s post-IPO performance has been dreadful, and investors are beginning to wonder if it’s “game over” for this newly public company. Being so closely tied to the world’s largest social network can be a blessing and a curse. You can learn everything you need to know about Zynga and whether it’s a buy or a sell in our new premium research report. Don’t even think about picking up shares before you read what our top analysts have to say about Zynga. Click here to access your copy.
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Shares of Sony are flying 3% higher today, and inquiring investors want to know why.
Is it because the Associated Press is reporting that the company’s feature film The Call collected $4.9 million in box office receipts over the weekend for a grand-total, three-week haul of…$39.6 million? Unlikely.
Or could it be that investors are clamoring for a piece of Sony action as the company’s much-anticipated PlayStation 4 gaming console comes to market? Possibly. The fact is, the imminent arrival of a new round of console upgrades has been doing good things for the stocks of most gaming-related companies: The shares of retailer GameStop and game makers Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard are all up strongly in recent months. This, however, is not a phenomenon solely restricted to Sony — and it doesn’t explain why its stock is outperforming everyone else this morning.
Honestly, I suspect that the reason Sony is showing strength today is the worst reason of all: Investors like Sony stock today because some banker just said that it likes Sony stock, too.
Don’t take advice from down under South of the equator, analysts at Macquarie Group upgraded shares of Sony this morning, saying they expect the stock to outperform the market. Why? No one seems to know. Major media outlets have no details on the upgrade. StreetInsider.com — usually a good source for this sort of thing — says only that the upgrade happened but knows nothing more than that.
Here’s what we do know: Whatever you think of the PlayStation 4 and its prospects, the company that makes the console is a dog of an investment. These shares have underperformed the S&P 500 by close to 30 percentage points over the past year, shedding fully a fifth of their value.
As for the company behind the ticker symbol, Sony is unprofitable today, and analysts have such a dim view of next year’s return to profitability that the stock‘s current valuation, divided by next year’s hoped-for (and uncertain) profits, works out to a sky-high forward P/E ratio of 85. Meanwhile, the amount of cash generated from operations at Sony is at its lowest level in four years.
Foolish final thought None of this, suffice it to say, is good news for Sony or its investors. None of it seems to justify blindly following some analyst’s advice and buying a stock that looks so eminently unbuyable.
While Activision and Microsoft have been taking the headlines when it comes to console gaming, Fools following the gaming sector would do well to also keep tabs on Electronic Arts. We can help. Our new special report breaks down the risks and opportunities facing the company to help you decide whether EA is right for your portfolio. Click here to get your copy now.
With the first quarter of 2013 officially over, it’s time to take a look back at the best performing bank stocks over the three-month time period.
As you can see in the table below, the list was led by little known First Financial Holdings . First Financial primarily operates as the holding company for First Federal Bank, a regional lender with 66 branches located throughout North and South Carolina.
Over the past two years, the holding company has been shedding assets at a considerable clip. In May of 2011, it disposed of its insurance agency subsidiary, First Southeast Insurance Services. Four months later, it completed the sale of its managing general insurance subsidiary, Kimbrell Insurance Group. And one month after that, it sold roughly $200 million in loans to a private investment group. If its performance in the first quarter of this year is any indication, this simplification has struck a chord with investors, as its shares were up more than 60%.
Bank
First-Quarter Performance
Market Cap ($ millions)
First Financial Holdings
60.74%
346
Virginia Commerce Bancorp
56.98%
456
Bank of the Ozarks
33.10%
1,568
Western Alliance Bancorp
31.43%
1,203
Bank Mutual Corp.
29.21%
257
Glacier Bancorp
29.03%
1,366
BofI Holding
29.02%
460
SVB Financial Group
26.75%
3,182
The Bancorp
26.25%
518
SCBT Financial
25.97%
857
Source: Finviz.com. Only banks with a market capitalization over $200 million were included in the analysis.
Another notable mention here is Bank of the Internet , a “nationwide branchless bank” that provides deposit and loan services to its customers principally over the Internet. As its website proclaims, “Because we do not incur the significantly higher fixed operating costs inherent in a branch-based distribution system, we are able to provide a better value to our customers. This means our interest rates on deposit products are generally among the highest available and our loan products feature low rates and fees.”
Using this model, BOFI has been able to nearly triple its asset base over the last five years. And it’s seemingly been able to do so without compromising on the quality of service. Two weeks ago, for example, it was named the 2012 top service provider by Costco Mortgage Services, a division of the membership retailing giant. According to Costco’s director of mortgage services: “We hold our service providers to the high standards that Costco members expect to receive from Costco services programs. We are pleased to award the honor of Top Service Provider to Bank of Internet for providing service above and beyond our already high standards.”
And finally, SVB Financial continues its impressive ascent, ending the quarter up by 27%. Short for Silicon Valley Bank, SVB counts among its clients some of the nation’s most innovative companies and, according to Forbes magazine, it “played an important role in the early days of companies including Cisco Systems, Electronic Arts, and Intuit.” Leveraging this model …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Electronic Arts hasn’t been winning any friends with its customer-service snafus recently, and the shoddy behavior has landed the company in The Consumerist‘s bracket for “The Worst Company In America” — yet again.
But the real question is how this poor sentiment translates to investor returns. In the following video, Jeremy Phillips and Austin Smith reflect on what the poor service means for shareholders, and their conclusions aren’t good.
While Activision Blizzard and Microsoft have been taking the headlines when it comes to console gaming, Electronic Arts has been languishing. If you’re wondering how to play the new landscape of gaming, we can help. Our new special report breaks down the risks and opportunities facing the company to help you decide whether EA is right for your portfolio. Click here to get your copy now.
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As the face of the gaming industry shifts, with many consumers turning away from traditional consoles and toward mobile gaming, has the pre-owned game industry come to an end for GameStop ? In this video, Motley Fool consumer goods analyst Blake Bos takes a look at the company’s earnings, discusses why investors should expect some weakness in 2013 despite a beat on earnings estimates for this cash-rich company, and tells us what the key things to watch with GameStop in 2013 will be.
If you’re game for more gaming news… While Activision and Microsoft have been taking the headlines when it comes to console gaming, Fools following the gaming sector would do well to also keep tabs on Electronic Arts. We can help. Our new special report breaks down the risks and opportunities facing the company to help you decide if EA is right for your portfolio. Click here to get your copy now.
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Facebook is now a major player in the games market. This may not be a surprise to avid Facebook gamers, but this new reality carries important implications for investors interested in the space, regardless of their gaming habits on the social network.
Looking beyond FarmVille Facebook’s vision for its gaming platform goes far deeper than Zynga‘s FarmVille. With an increased focus on serious gamers, the company could draw in developers of console-like games, such as Microsoft, Electronic Arts , and Activision Blizzard and their flocks of core gamers.
“Riveting games with intense graphical fidelity are possible on Facebook,” says Games.com’s Joe Osborne. While most Facebook members are probably familiar with casual games like Candy Crush Saga and FarmVille, Facebook is gearing up to become a competitive destination for action and console-like games.
At the Game Developers Conference yesterday, Facebook’s director of games partnerships, Sean Ryan, named several games of this type that are set to release soon: Tome, Chronoblade, and Imperium.
Apparently the company’s $3 billion share of the $15 billion games market isn’t satisfying Facebook’s ambition. Ryan told AllFacebook (the “unofficial Facebook blog”) in February that one of its biggest goals this year is to be a go-to destination for core and mid-core gamers. He feels that this is inevitably where the social gaming market is headed. “Last year was primarily about casino, hidden object, and casual, and we’ll continue to see those expand. But I think we’ll see a rise in the core games as developers figure out how to make them social.”
It’s no wonder Facebook wants to push further into the games market. It is an area of astounding growth for the company, according to Ryan. Game installs on Facebook are up 75% from this time last year. Furthermore, paying gamers on Facebook have increased 25% over the last 12 months.
Can traditional gaming companies flourish in social gaming? The trend toward higher-graphic action games on Facebook’s platform is good news for gaming behemoths Microsoft, EA, and Activision. As Facebook makes inroads with core games, developers of console games will have to worry less about casual games stealing the attention and time of their serious gamers.
More importantly, as console-like games become possible on Facebook’s platform, companies like EA and Activision can use their vast experience and resources to launch successful core games on the platform. In fact, both EA and Activision have already commenced social ventures.
In 2012, Activision unveiled a publishing segment devoted to developing third-party games for the social-mobile gaming world. Morningstar analyst Carr Lanphier describes the segment as important but still insignificant to the company’s earnings. For now, “It allows the company to get the lay of the land — no easy task in the volatile world of social and mobile gaming — and figure out the best strategy to grow profitably in the newly emerging market.”
To be an Electronic Arts investor is to possess an iron stomach. The stock is up more than 22% year to date, touching a new 52-week high recently, but there are many — including former CEO John Riccitiello — who think EA should be doing better.
Riccitiello resigned after the company issued disappointing guidance for the current quarter. And that’s in spite of selling 1.1 million copies of the new edition of Sim City shortly after release. Trouble is, the total could have been higher: EA‘s servers proved unable to handle the online aspects of the game, forcing the company to up capacity by some 400%.
Should investors be concerned by the gaffes? Not really, says Tim Beyers of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Supernova. In the following video, he illustrates the difference between EA and experienced online peers Activision Blizzard and Zynga and explains why the stock still has room to run.
While Activision and Microsoft have been taking the headlines when it comes to console gaming, Fools following the gaming sector would do well to also keep tabs on Electronic Arts. We can help. Our new special report breaks down the risks and opportunities facing the company to help you decide if EA is right for your portfolio. Click here to get your copy now.
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As an investor, it pays to follow the cash. If you figure out how a company moves its money, you might eventually find some of that cash flowing into your pockets.
In this series, we’ll highlight four companies in an industry, and compare their “cash king margins” over time, trying to determine which has the greatest likelihood of putting cash back in your pocket. After all, a company can pay dividends and buy back stock only after it’s actually received cash — not just when it books those accounting figments known as “profits.”
Today, let’s look at Activision Blizzardand three of its peers.
The cash king margin Looking at a company’s cash flow statement can help you determine whether its free cash flow actually backs up its reported profit. Companies that can create 10% or more free cash flow from their revenue can be powerful compounding machines for your portfolio. A sustained high cash king margin can be a good predictor of long-term stock returns.
To find the cash king margin, divide the free cash flow from the cash flow statement by sales:
Cash king margin = Free cash flow / sales
Let’s take McDonald’s as an example. In the four quarters ending in December, the restaurateur generated $6.97 billion in operating cash flow. It invested about $3.05 billion in property, plant, and equipment. To calculate free cash flow, subtract McDonald’s investment from its operating cash flow. That leaves us with $3.92 billion in free cash flow, which the company can save for future expenditures or distribute to shareholders.
Taking McDonald’s sales of $25.5 billion over the same period, we can figure that the company has a cash king margin of about 14% — a nice high number. In other words, for every dollar of sales, McDonald’s produces $0.14 in free cash.
Ideally, we’d like to see the cash king margin top 10%. The best blue chips can notch numbers greater than 20%, making them true cash dynamos. But some businesses, including many types of retailing, just can’t sustain such margins.
We’re also looking for companies that can consistently increase their margins over time, which indicates that their competitive position is improving. Erratic swings in margins could signal a deteriorating business, or perhaps some financial skullduggery; you’ll have to dig deeper to discover the reason.
Four companies Here are the cash king margins for four industry peers over a few periods.
Take-Two Interactive‘s BioShock Infinite hits the market, and the dystopian adventure is garnering rave reviews. The first two releases in the franchise sold a combined 10 million copies, and Take-Two has cracked open the piggy bank in recent days for national TV ads.
Enjoy today, die-hard gamers. Take Wednesday off. Worry about Thursday.
GameStop reports on Thursday morning.
On the surface, everything’s rosy at the leading stand-alone video game retailer. The shares are trading near December’s 52-week high. Analysts see profitability per share climbing 21% to $2.09, and after coming off back-to-back quarters of beating Wall Street‘s forecasts on the bottom line, it would seem as if momentum is in GameStop’s favor.
Well, it’s not.
This new level gets harder There are a few reasons to fret about the upcoming report.
Let’s start with a snapshot of the industry. We already know that GameStop had a lousy Christmas.
GameStop’s global sales during the holiday months of November and December fell 4.6% to $2.88 billion. Comps slipped 4.4% during the seasonally critical period. Analysts only see net sales at GameStop falling 3.5% for the quarter ending in January, and that’s optimistic since January was another bad month for the industry.
Why would Wall Street be targeting a 21% pop in profitability on falling sales? It’s not as if the market is holding out for margin expansion. GameStop’s most lucrative business is the sale of preowned games and gear. It generates more than twice the gross profit percentage as new software sales. Forget about hardware sales, where GameStop can only afford a nominal markup. Well, the sale of secondhand gear is slipping at a faster rate than the new stuff — and that’s only going to get worse if new PS4 and Xbox 720 consoles prohibit the playing of hand-me-down titles as has been rumored.
The secret to buoyant earnings is GameStop deploying its greenbacks to buy back shares. Stock repurchases are good for the most part, but at this retailer it’s masking the real demise in its business.
Just check back with the chain’s fiscal third-quarter results. Adjusted net income declined by 12% even though it was nearly flat on a per-share basis. Swallowing down gobs of stock will do that, but it doesn’t mean that the fundamentals aren’t deteriorating.
Amnesia is a losing game The market seems to forget that the gaming industry is deep into a three-year slide.
Why? This is an industry in decline. EA and Activision Blizzard have their marquee franchises holding up well, but everything else is falling apart at the seams. One can argue that EA and Activision Blizzard are in a better place than GameStop. They will cash in on the digital revolution and the lack of resale activity on downloads. GameStop — despite having made some digital moves …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Unless you make cereal, you usually don’t sell a million copies of your product over a weekend. The mere fact that Activision Blizzard was able to move 1.1 million copies of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm in the first 48 hours says something about the company’s customers — two things, if we’re counting. First, that they’re dedicated followers of the brand and the products. This wasn’t even a new product, it was an expansion to an old one. That implies that well over 1.1 million people own that original product.
Second, it highlights the cash that the company is capable of pulling in because of its brand strength. The expansion retails for $40, meaning that StarCraft made more money that week than most movies at the box office did. While having a hot product isn’t reason enough to invest in a company — see “pet rock” — it’s not a bad reason to look into a business. Here are three solid reasons to get on board with Activision Blizzard.
It makes money Sometimes you sell a lot of those Nooks and still don’t make any money, but Activision isn’t playing that game. The company earned $4.8 billion in revenue last quarter, resulting in earnings per share of $1.01. That has enabled the company to announce a $0.19 dividend payable in May, and might result in some share repurchasing, as well. The success came from the popularity of two major franchises — Call of Duty and Skylanders — which ran at the top of the U.S. charts for much of the year.
Activision has been very successful at making the most out of its subscribers, earning revenue at every possible turn. The two I want to highlight are World of Warcraft, a subscription-based game boasting over 9.5 million users, and Skylanders, a video game that interacts with collectible figurines. At the end of last year, Skylanders had generated over $1 billion in worldwide sales.
Last year, the company ran a healthy operating margin of 40%, which compares favorably to Electronic Arts , which has been running at an operational loss. Activision has been judicious with its cash as well, generating a free cash flow of $1.3 billion over the last year. That’s the sort of financial stability that allows the company to really play with how it generates money — the second big reason to buy Activision.
It makes money in new and intelligent ways The company has been a front-runner in both the microtransaction and subscription spaces. Activision generated 34% of its revenue in subscriptions and licensing fees last year. That’s a fantastically sticky source, and it allows the company to try new things — like selling collectible toys. Skylanders was a stroke of marketing genius, and it has allowed the company to release popular new content in big batches. With each new game comes a whole host of new toys for kids to collect. But to keep …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
DreamWorks Animation shareholders can all exhale now.
The Croods, one of just two movies that the company will release this year, is off to a good start at the box office. The tally on its opening weekend box office haul was a cool $45 million.
That strong launch means we probably won’t see another big write-down like the one that swamped DreamWorks’ results last year.
But there’s more for investors to like about The Croods than just solid revenue. Just as important is how much it cost DreamWorks to produce the film. And by that measure the company has already won. This movie was a bargain compared to DreamWorks’ last few outings.
The Croods cost just $135 million to make, much cheaper than the $150 million the animator usually shells out to develop a feature. And it plans to drive those costs down even further over the next 18 months — to around $120 million per film.
It works for games, too DreamWorks isn’t the only company that’s trying to do large-scale entertainment on a small-scale budget these days. Game maker Activision Blizzard‘s newest title is also a move in that direction. Called Hearthstone, the game is a big departure from the company’s massive-multiplayer, world-encompassing epics.
While the new game is based on Activision’s World of Warcraft hit, it is far less ambitious in scope. This card-building game handles two players at a time, and took a team of just a few developers to put together. That’s a far cry from the years of development and hundreds of millions of dollars that Warcraft needed. Still, Activision says the result has been an easy, accessible game that might not be epic in size, but is still “epically engaging.”
I think these are smart moves by Activision and DreamWorks. Both companies could stand to rely less on a handful of blockbuster titles and thus risk a single flop that could torpedo the year’s results. And while it makes sense to keep swinging for the fences occasionally, there’s no reason that every title has to follow that path.
By driving the cost bar lower, they are free to try some more innovative stuff. And who knows? The next big franchise might even come from one of these less-expensive productions.
While Activision and Microsoft have been taking the headlines when it comes to console gaming, Fools following the gaming sector would do well to also keep tabs on Electronic Arts. We can help. Our new special report breaks down the risks and opportunities facing the company to help you decide if EA is right for your portfolio. Click here to get your copy now.
