Tag Archives: twx

‘Everything is awesome’ for U.S. video game sales in Feb.

U.S. retail sales of video game products returned to growth in February thanks to strong sales of new consoles and “The Lego Movie” tie-in game. Sales of new video game hardware, software and accessories totaled $887 million last month, up 9% from February 2013, the NPD Group reported late Thursday. Game sales were down about 1% in January after rising for five consecutive months on a year-over-year basis. Next-generation game consoles from Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony (SNE) fueled hardware sales, which were up 42% year over year to $347 million. Accessories sales rose 3% to $221 million. Software sales dipped 9% to $318 million, because of lower average selling prices for top games like “The Lego Movie Videogame” from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a unit of Time Warner (TWX), and “Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare” from Electronic Arts (EA). Also, software sales declined for older consoles, including Microsoft’s Xbox 360…

Old consoles dominating holiday video game sales

Despite the arrival of next-generation video game consoles from Microsoft and Sony, games for older consoles dominated the sales charts during the opening weekend of holiday shopping. All of the top 20 best-selling game titles on Amazon.com (AMZN) over the weekend were for prior-generation consoles. Microsoft ‘s (MSFT) Xbox 360 scored 10 of the top 20, while Sony ‘s (SNE) PlayStation 3 claimed eight and Nintendo ‘s (NTDOY) Wii nabbed two, Cowen analyst Doug Creutz said in a research note Monday. The latest game consoles — Microsoft’s Xbox One, Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Nintendo’s Wii U — didn’t have a single game in the top 20. That’s not too surprising for the Xbox One and PS4, given reports of shortages of the new machines, which debuted last month. But the Wii U has been out for a year and a high-profile game, “Super Mario 3D World,” came out on Nov. 22. “We expect Nintendo’s latest console to continue to struggle this holiday,” Creutz wrote. Among third-party publishers, Electronic Arts (EA) had six of the top 20 games, followed by Ubisoft with four. Activision (ATVI) and Time Warner ‘s (TWX) Warner Bros. each had three in the top 20. Activision’s “Call of Duty: Ghosts” for the Xbox 360 was the best-selling game overall, followed by…

Newly Independent AOL Beats Q4 Views

Is AOL on the comeback trail? Shares of the beleaguered but still-popular Web portal rose 2% on Wednesday as stronger advertising sales helped offset further declines in its legacy dial-up Internet service. AOL (AOL) also rolled out its revival strategy, which includes launching new content and ad services and axing most of its offshore operations. AOL, which spun off from its former parent Time Warner (TWX) in December, swung to a profit of 71