GameStop losing ground to digital downloads, stock tanks
GameStop fell sharply Friday as some investors declared “game over” for the stock. The video game retailer late Thursday reported Q3 earnings that missed expectations by a wide margin. GameStop earned 57 cents a share excluding items on sales of $2.09 billion for the quarter that ended Nov. 1. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected 61 cents and $2.2 billion. Earnings per share fell 2% from the year-earlier period, while sales slipped 1%. GameStop blamed the delayed release of Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed Unity” for hurting Q3 sales. Comparable store sales were down 2.3% in the period. GameStop (GME) stock was down 14%, near 37, in morning trading on the stock market today. During the quarter, new hardware sales increased 147%, outpacing industry growth of 102%, fueled by next-generation consoles from Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony (SNE). But new software sales declined 34% as the retailer faced difficult comparisons to …