albionus said:
HappySqurriel said:
Sullla said:
Well, if Pachter is blasting Take-Two, that means it's probably time to start buying their stock...  Seriously though, I actually agree with him (for once). This company is still in very shaky financial shape. I've never seen any other publisher have so many hit franchises, yet manage to lose money on a consistent basis. With Bioshock's strong sales, Take-Two definitely should have done better this year. Somewhere in this company, a lot of money is getting wasted away. To any potential investors out there: do not buy this stock unless you have a VERY high tolerance of risk. |
In North America Take Two had 68 games on the charts in 2007 with 56 of those selling less than 250,000 units. The breakdown by console is as follows: 22 (16 below 250,000)- XBox 360
14 (11 below 250,000)- PSP
13 (12 below 250,000)- PS3
10 (9 below 250,000)- PS2
6 (5 below 250,000)- Wii
3 (3 below 250,000)- DS When you look at the distribution you will notice that they have been heavily supporting the systems which are selling the slowest and have the highest development costs. Personally, looking at their year it becomes clear why they're losing money being that they're (probably) somewhat profitable on their PSP, PS2, Nintendo DS and Wii libraries but are certainly losing a fortune on their XBox 360 and PS3 libraries. |
Yikes, and I thought EA made the worse bet this generation. Overweighting the 360 is understandable but almost 4:1 against the Wii? What's even more insane is supporting the PSP almost 5:1 over the DS? Where has Take Two's management been for the last 3 years? |
The thing that really bothers me is that an average Nintendo DS game potentially costs 10% of what the average XBox 360 or PS3 game costs to develop; this means that the sales you need to turn a healthy profit are tiny in comparison to what would be necessary to turn a profit from and XBox 360 or PS3 project. At the same time sales of the Nintendo DS ensure that (pretty much) any game with a half decent game will sell 100,000+ copies. All these factors combined means that a company like Take Two should balance their "investment" in PS3/XBox 360 games with a healthy dose of DS games (possibly 4 DS games for every PS3/XBox 360 game), and yet Take 2 only releases 3 game in a year?
