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Gamestop: Wii shortages aren't going away
Seeing as how the console released in November of 2006, you can probably understand why we're frustrated in having to report on the inability to freely and easily locate our desire out in the world beyond tubes. We want everyone to be able to enjoy the console, so why can't Nintendo churn out enough? Why has it taken them this long to satisfy demand and why has demand been at record highs throughout the console's short lifespan? Gamestop might know, as they recently stated in a report that they expect console shortages to last for another 6 months. We're betting that the retailer's forecast is fairly conservative, as it's easy to imagine another 6 months of early mornings trying to hunt one down. The console has been hard to find since its launch, so another 6 months doesn't seem like much of a stretch to us, at all.This is just the expectations of Gamestop, though, so should Nintendo emerge from the dark mist like some knight in shining armor, we would most definitely take our own foot and place it within our own mouth. But seeing as how Nintendo hasn't figured out how to satisfy demand issues yet, we're going to have to assume it'll take a while to get healthy Wii stock on shelves.
Virgin Mobile stock takes a beating, revenue not forecasted to grow
Hot on the heels of dismal news from the Helio camp comes word that frowns are all the rage over at Virgin Mobile, too. After warning that "current quarter subscriber growth would fall to a range of 5,000 to 20,000" (compared to a net gain of 210,000 in Q4) and expressing concerns that the weakness in the US economy would further harm its chances at having a stupendous decent year, shares of its stock sank some 54-percent to $2.30 (but did manage to recover somewhat). Potentially more worrisome, however, was the pessimistic views from analysts; for instance, Bear Stearns' Phil Cusick noted that after two disappointing quarters in a row, he felt that the "softening economy and increased competition had eliminated management's ability to forecast its business." Of course, when the street expects your revenue to increase by some 20-percent and you calmly explain that it downright "will not grow this year," we suppose the stock drop isn't all that shocking.[Via mocoNews]
WSJ: Strong PS3 projections makes Sony stock a "bargain"
Just as every cloud has a silver lining, every drop in stock value hides within it an opportunity for profit. At least that's what the Wall Street Journal seems to be saying with an article that argues the precipitous 26% drop in Sony stock this year could actually be an opportunity for bargain hunters.The Journal was heartened by the Sony video game unit's quarterly profit over the holidays -- its first in two years -- and sees increasing demand for the PS3 as a good reason to buy low in anticipation of selling high. Sony itself predicts sales of 9.5 million PS3s this year, and the Journal cites analysts predicting a whopping 14 million systems sold in '09. Pretty optimistic, considering the company only moved 3.6 million units in 2007, but with things looking up for the troubled system, it could happen.
Wall Street Journal says Sony stock is a 'bargain'
Sony's stock has dropped 26% in the past year, for a number of reasons. Undoubtedly, the high costs of PS3 manufacturing and its sluggish performance hasn't helped Sony's corporate image.However, the Wall Street Journal is suggesting that this is actually a good thing for investors. Sony's stock has always been "undervalued" according to their analysis. However, in recent time the stock has "become even more attractive."The video game unit's quarterly profit and increasing demand for the PS3 is making Sony a much more desirable company to invest in. Analysts have been quick to call Sony the ultimate "winner" of this generation of consoles, and the recent victory of Blu-ray in the format war is a huge help for the company. After such troubled performance, it's only a matter of time before Sony's stock goes back on the rise. Perhaps now is the time to invest.[Via Joystiq]
Sony stock soars 5 percent after Blu-ray victory
Sony shares obviously performed well after Blu-ray was declared victorious in the HD movie war. According to Reuters, "U.S. shares of Sony Corp rose as much as 5 percent on Tuesday on optimism about sales of its PlayStation 3 video game consoles and Blu-ray DVD players." While many are quick to note that game consoles should be about games, investors are seeing things a different way. They see Sony's all-encompassing approach to media as one that will really drive their business forward."We believe Blu-ray's victory could drive market share gains for the PS3, as we believe consumers will now be more willing to pay up (versus 360) for the standard Blu-ray player," William Blair analyst Ralph Shackart wrote in a note to clients. The stocks managed to reach a high of $47.07 (although it fell down to $46.30 later on).The Japanese electronics company has been struggling financially due to the high production costs of the PS3. However, with a Blu-ray victory secured, things are certainly looking forward for the company. Will you invest in their stock now, too?[Via Joystiq]
THQ CEO Brian Farrell exercises stock options, sells shares
We don't claim to be stock market experts (we don't know how anyone can keep up with all those bulls and bears and acronyms) but we're pretty sure that when a company's head honcho exercises options for over 73 thousand shares in his own company, then promptly sells off close to 53 thousand of those shares (netting a cool $10 million profit in the process), that's usually kind of a bad moon rising for said organization. When the honcho in question is Brian Farrell, CEO of the economically tumultuous game designer and publisher THQ, our rarely used financial spider-sense can't help but tingle. Sure, our conjecture could be entirely off base -- Farrell might just want to fill his swimming pool with singles -- but considering the company's recent chain of headline-making damage control maneuvers, we can't help but wonder if THQ is more SOL than anyone could have guessed.
Sega Sammy losses bring layoffs, arcade closings
Life comes at you fast if you're Sega Sammy. Just a couple of years after increased profits had the company rolling in money, the company today announced that it plans to lose a whopping 26 billion yen (approx. $230 million) this fiscal year. Compared to the previous projection of a billion yen profit for the year, the turnaround comes as a bit of a shock.The main culprit behind the downturn seems to be the pachinko side of the business, which saw a predicted 85 percent fall in profits, and arcade sales, which switched from a slight profit last year to a 11.4 billion yen loss this year (damn that popular Wii).To staunch the bleeding, the company will be offering early retirement to 400 employees and closing 110 unprofitable amusement parks and arcades around Japan. Hard to believe the previous incarnation of this company once held the lion's share of the home video game market.
Nintendo shares hit 7-month low on recession fears
Seems the money-market-fueled stock dip Nintendo suffered last week isn't over yet. Bloomberg is reporting that the company's stock tumbled down 5.9 percent today to its lowest point since early July '07.The reason for the precipitous fall isn't so much Nintendo's recent performance -- the company is still more profitable than a solid-gold hippopotamus that periodically spits out smaller golden hippopatami. According to Bloomberg, the stock sell-off for Nintendo and other export-based Japanese companies seems to be based on the recently reported rapid contraction of the U.S. service industry, which has also caused problems for the U.S. stock market. Traders are reading the contraction as a strong sign of a long-predicted U.S. recession, which means less money to go around for non-essentials like video games.Will less discretionary spending mean tougher times ahead for the games industry, or is huge growth last year indicative of a somewhat recession-proof sector? We'll see, but in the meantime we'd recommend stuffing your mattress with small bills and loading up on canned goods. You know, just in case.
Nintendo stock set to hit 7 month low
Nintendo's stock prices have been on a steady decline as of late. Just weeks ago, the stock took a slight tumble. This was mainly due to investor fear of the dollar getting weaker combined with the continuing hardware shortages plaguing Nintendo.And despite what some folks see the company doing financially throughout this year, the stock continues to fall. Falling 5.9 percent to 45,800 yen, this is the lowest the stock has been set to fall since July 2nd of last year, a 7 month low. As for the future of Nintendo's stock, we hear it's better to buy when it's low, and sell when it's high. Not that we're qualified to give stock advice or anything ...[Via Go Nintendo]
High-res Motion templates at motionVFX
motionVFX, a new source of templates for Apple Motion, is offering 2d and 3d templates prepped at 1920x1080 and 24fps. The 10 second clips are downloadable for $10, so I took one for a spin. There are rare circumstances when I would use a template for a finished piece, and motionVFX has a relatively small (but growing) starting selection which limits the chances that I'll find anything "perfect" for a current project. However, I love getting inside of other people's work to figure out new ways of doing things and the template I picked was well done, well organized and I did actually learn some new tricks. The site navigation is mostly intuitive, but lacking in a few features. The previews are quick and helpful, but I miss the "lightbox" functionality found on most stock sites. Maybe they'll get to that as the collection grows. Checkout with Paypal is great for me, but the offsite credit card processing breaks from the overall professional look of the site. The fact that I was quite happy with my purchase made that a moot point for me, though. motionVFX is offering TUAW lovers a special discount... 25% off of your purchase, including their high-res stock photos, with unlimited use through the end of February. Just enter the coupon code "J2LGR7" at checkout. And because I care about our readers, I tested that too. It works.
Steve Jobs tells Apple employees and investors to "hang in there"
Although the market as a whole has taken a beating lately, the rollercoaster ride has been particularly harsh on Apple stockholders, who've seen their shares fall from a high of $202 earlier this year to just over $130 today. Of course, among the hardest hit was Steve himself, who has over 5M shares of the company -- which is why he may have sent out an email today advising employees to "hang in there." Calling the past week "a remarkable last few days," Jobs pointed to Apple's product pipeline, people, strategy and -- perhaps most importantly -- $18B of straight cash in the bank as reasons to have faith, and said that factors "larger than ourselves" were taking their toll on the stock price. That may be so, but it's still pretty unlike Jobs to comment on things like this -- we suppose taking a $377M hit on paper would probably cause us to say a few things as well.
Nintendo shares drop 10%, has 'little to do with company itself'
Despite a knack for printing money with its consoles, Nintendo's investors appeared less enthused today as its stock slid 9.7%, according to Reuters. However, analysts suggest that Nintendo is not culpable, citing a stronger yen and potential overselling by major investors."In the current market environment, investors rush to sell at the first sign of negative developments or exhaustion of positive news," said Mizuho Asset Management fund manager Yoshihisa Okamoto. That exhaustion of good news could easily be a pun for Nintendo's ever-present console shortage issue. The stronger yen is a legitimate concern, given it cuts into the profits for major exporting companies (of which Nintendo is one). Sales of the DS and Wii platforms have largely contributed to the company's meteoric rise in recent years, and its stock has subsequently enjoyed a mammoth increase, as well. Ex-Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi became the third wealthiest in Japan last year thanks to the rise in share value. Markets tend to fluctuate, and we estimate this week's Japanese release of Smash Bros Brawl will likely have a positive impact on Nintendo's stock.[Via GameSpot]
Wall Street to AAPL: Get bent
OK, I get it. Equity investments are bets on the future, not rewards for the past, and a stock like Apple's with such stratospheric growth over the past 12 months is vulnerable to gloomy outlooks in a way that more plodding investments might not be. Still and all: another record quarter. Best sales, best revenue in Apple's history. More than 2.3 million Macs sold, and nearly as many iPhones (!). Over twenty-two million freakin' iPods. Year over year, the December quarter gained almost 2.5 billion dollars in revenue -- my goodness, it was a 9.6B quarter, which would have been a spectacular entire year for the Apple of recent memory. Apple beat the internal guidance by $0.34 a share... there's no way to describe this financial performance except "stunningly good" -- unless you're Doug Krizner of Marketplace Morning Report, who characterized the results today as "less than stellar." Man, I am so happy they made that guy stop signing off with "Make it a good day," because the way he said it made me want to get back in bed and hide my money under a mattress.But I digress. With these results in mind, why would after-hours traders respond with the fiscal equivalent of "Go crawl in a hole and die, you hippie freaks?" Granted, Apple's CFO is anticipating earnings per share for next quarter around a dollar, which is less than analysts were hoping for and may point to some drag on the business from deteriorating economic conditions. It still seems to me that with iPhone revenue growing (remember, it takes two years to extract all the profit from those iPhone sales, so there's an upslope out there as the sales and new markets accumulate) and new streams coming in from iTunes rentals and the so-hot-it's-untouchable retail operation, we've gone from irrational exuberance to a gang initiation beatdown.Oh well. If I wanted peace and quiet I probably should have bought Dell stock.Disclaimer: I hold shares in AAPL. Bought them at a split-adjusted $13. Not selling, either.
Apple investors miss one more thing
Hey, you can't announce a new iPhone every year.
Apple stock help drive mutual fund returns
I'm not Wall Street wunderkind but it doesn't take Warren Buffet to know that Apple's stock has been performing well. It would seem that, at least according to the New York Times, Apple's performance coupled with Google and RIM has lead to many mutual funds seeing extraordinary growth this year. Many funds are glad they didn't sell all their Apple stock when it seems that it just couldn't go any higher (how high can it go? I have no idea, but since I don't own any Apple stock it really matters little to me).
SCi pulls out of buyout talks, stock plunges following Tomb Raider delay
Eidos owner SCi has been on the hunt for a potential suitor for some time, reportedly having batted its eyelashes at everyone from Midway and Vivendi to Time Warner and even some mysterious outfit in China, with none showing enough interest to sign their name across the dotted line. However, after having been given the cold shoulder by Ubisoft last October, the British firm has finally gotten the hint and moved on, stating that it had not received any formal offers within the requested timeframe.What this means to you and I is that it may be some time before we see another major release branded with the Eidos logo, as SCi confirmed that it has pushed out the recently revealed Tomb Raider: Underworld until the fourth quarter of 2008, along with three other unspecified titles. The company also announced plans to bring Lara Croft's latest escapade to the DS, Wii and PS2, in addition to the previously known versions for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.Way to be strong, SCi, but you might not want to look at your stock this morning. Following the firm's decision to go it alone, SCi's stock hit "rock bottom," and according to a new Bloomberg report, suffered its biggest plummet in more than 18 years, falling some 61 percent after SCi admitted that the aforementioned delays will likely result in an operating loss for 2008 and that the company may need to look to outside parties for the money to stay afloat. Of course, with SCi's share price now swimming with the fishes, we wouldn't be too surprised if another company now swooped in and bought up SCi and its properties at bargain basement prices. You hear that EA? Someone is singing your song.
Nintendo to help Blu-ray win the format war?
This is something we never imagined we'd be discussing. With the Wii's lack of HD output, we never gave much thought to the new formats of HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Now, we're going to have to rethink things, as a very interesting piece comes courtesy of Rob Enderle.He seems to think that because the Wii is so popular, but unable to completely fulfill the incredible demand for the console up until now, Nintendo inadvertently pushed sales over to Sony's PS3. This, combined with the good numbers Blu-ray discs were getting at retail, are going to be big factors in what Enderle sees as Blu-ray's eventual victory.While the high definition format war isn't something that we usually cover here at Wii Fanboy, it's interesting to see someone look at Nintendo's problem of satiating demand for the console in this way. [Via Go Nintendo]
One place in the U.S. is still getting Wiis daily
As the guillotine's blade falls ever closer to your neck (see: Christmas is right around the corner), you might be in a panic that you're not going to get that Wii for your loved one. It sucks, we know. But, if you live in or around the New York city area, there's one place that's getting Wii shipments on a daily basis: the Nintendo World Store.New York City's Rockefeller Center is no stranger to crowds. But, it's been commented that multiple people have been lining up outside of the Nintendo World Store each morning, as the news of consoles being seen at the store each morning gets passed around, with "at least 20 [Wiis] lined up behind the main counter. Just Wii boxes waiting for the next person in line." Bag, please open and release cat.If you live in the city, you might want to check this out. Any of our NYC readers planning on doing this? Did you get your Wii from the Nintendo World Store?
Nintendo stocks stop rise, dip slightly
Even with the DS breaking sales records in the U.S. last month, the consistent rise of value in Kyoto-based Nintendo's stock has hit a ceiling lately. Analysts are stating that until the conclusion of the holiday season, the stocks are likely to stay this way, halted in their tracks.Over the past two years through this October, Nintendo's stocks have risen exponentially, but lately have seen a small fall. Nintendo's stock value has dipped 8% since November, which isn't good if Nintendo hopes to maintain its place as the third most valuable company in Japan. We're fairly certain, however, that the stocks will continue their rise as Nintendo emerges victorious this holiday season.[Via Next Gen]
PS3 responsible for Nintendo stock stagnation
The Nintendo DS and Wii continue to print money, and the stock prices have demonstrated Nintendo's incredible success. Both systems continue to be top-sellers this holiday season, so why has the stock stagnated? The PS3, according to some financial analysts. "People's perception of the PS3 is improving from an underdog to something better, and part of the money that used to flow into Nintendo shares is now going to the Sony stock," said Yoshihisa Okamoto, fund manager at Mizuho Asset Management."The PS3 has been doing better recently. But that's partly because there are not enough Wii machines to go around in the United States and Europe," noted Rakuten Securities analyst Yasuo Imanaka in a report by Reuters.It's interesting to see analysts finally turn around in their assessment of the PS3, no longer thinking it the underdog it appeared to be at the beginning of the year. With a strong lineup of games coming in 2008, PS3 has a strong chance to start chipping away at the lead that Microsoft and Nintendo have earned. Fanboy flame wars are going to get a lot more interesting next year.[Via GameDaily]
