Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Take-Two Takes Financial Hit

Posted by Zonk on from the money-lost-to-bullies dept.

Gamespot reports that Take-Two Entertainment, publishers of titles like Civ IV, has reported much lower earnings than in the previous year in the same period. From the article: "There were several reasons behind the shortfall. Though Take-Two had three Xbox 360 launch titles--Amped 3, NBA 2K6, and NHL 2K6--and a solid PC hit in the form of Civilization IV, the company admits it had a lackluster Christmas in 2005. 'Clearly, the holiday season did not live up to anyone's expectations,' said Paul Eibeler, Take-Two's president and CEO, in a statement."

5 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. 3 Xbox launch titles aren't particularly lucrative by republican+gourd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... when there aren't any Xbox's to play them on. I've seen shelves and shelves and shelves of Xbox 360 games for *weeks* now. The '07 sports stuff might well be current before 360's are commonly available.

  2. hmmm... by Brantano · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe they'll try to make a new, original game, instead of rehashing there old titles?

  3. Anyone's Expectations ? by bateleur · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "...did not live up to anyone's expectations" eh ?

    Who are these people and where did they get their expectations from? If I recall correctly the 4th quarter of 2004 included Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas. I'd expect that to mean higher revenue than this year - Civ4 is PC only and as has been pointed out there aren't enough XBox 360s in play yet for the platform to generate huge revenues.

    Can anyone explain why these results are surprising ?

  4. Gimme a friggin break by billybob · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course the sales will be down from same period last year - that's when GTA:San Andreas came out. Did they really expect to even come close to that?

    More importantly, who gives a crap, other than stock holders. They still had 1.2 billion in sales. Obviously only a part of that number will be profit, but the important thing is they still MADE MONEY. How is that a bad thing? :P

    --
    Joseph?
    1. Re:Gimme a friggin break by Discopete · · Score: 3, Insightful

      More importantly, who gives a crap, other than stock holders

      The Stockholders are the ones who the company cares about. Not you or me (unless were stockholders.)
      This lackluster performance could in some investors eyes signal a preview of what is yet to come, causing them to reduce or liquidate their holdings in take-two. As the stock hits the market, the price drops and that in turn indicates that the company is doing something wrong.

      Most of the employees probably have a decent portion of the compensation given to them in the form of employee stock options. As the price of the stock drops, the value of the stock options decrease, lowering the employees compensation and normally their morale as well. Which can lead to defections to other companies and a general sliding of take-two's stock price progressively lower, which leads to lower compensation, lower morale, higher defections, etc.

      We don't matter, the stockholders do, period. If it makes the stock holders happy, the company will try to do it, regardless of what we think.