Take Two to MLB 2K9: You ruined our quarter! - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

Take Two to MLB 2K9: You ruined our quarter! Stuck

Posted on December 4, 2009 at 12:19 PM.

(5)

I read the Take Two quarterly earnings release this morning and I couldn't help but scratch my head.

Apparently a game which had been received tepidly by the market and a game which was approaching the offseason of it's sport was the cause of a bad quarter. I'm wondering aloud if maybe MLB 2K9 is acting as a scapegoat for what pretty much amounts to just a bad quarter overall by Take Two?

Let's just look at the available evidence. First, we know MLB 2K9 wasn't exactly selling like hotcakes, gathered either from the Take Two release or from other sources which attempt to track industry sales. Second, MLB 2K9 was released a full two quarters before this quarter's report. Thirdly, it is a highly annualized/seasonal title which basically means sales tend to wane when the sport it represents begins to wind down and go into it's offseason.

Basically, either Take Two has the worst financial projection market in history or they are using MLB 2K9 as a scapegoat to hide what it calls, "lower than expected initial performance of several of its key holiday releases."

I'm not sure which it is, but the math just doesn't add up. I highly doubt MLB 2K9 had enough of a projected sales volume to ruin this last quarter for Take Two. Here's to hoping this is a wake up call to the folks developing MLB 2K10 though.

Comments

# 1 Potatoes002 @ Dec 4

Why cant 2K and EA just make up so we can have good baseball games again on the xbox?

# 2 RaychelSnr @ Dec 4

The market thought the same thing I did today...Take Two was down almost 30% (!!!) today.

I think this has the makings of a publisher getting into some rocky waters. I'll be keeping my ears to the ground for any possible rumors popping up in the coming weeks.

# 3 jyoung @ Dec 5

Quote:


	The Company's expected fiscal 2010 results primarily reflect the movement of one triple-A title out of the fiscal year; a non-GAAP net loss from the Company's Major League Baseball business in the range of $30 million to $35 million, or $0.38 to $0.44 per share; higher development costs for certain titles; as well as the impact of the continued difficult retail environment.

So if I read that correctly, they actually lost money off their MLB games this year?

Wouldn't surprise me given how bad those games have been and how poorly they've sold at retail.

# 4 RaychelSnr @ Dec 5

Yeah man, they paid so much for the MLB License they are losing some mega money with em I suppose. Still, I can't believe they thought a crappy game was going to continue to sell deep into its release cycle. Really a head scratcher to blame the MLB game so late in its cycle.