Take-Two shares plummet on Q4 loss

That’s a big drop, their shares were holding up relatively well compared to the others since the credit crunch kicked in. Doesn’t sound like they’re set up too badly for 2009 either, apart from being over-reliant on GTA.

Easy to say they should have taken EA’s $27 a share back in the summer with hindsight mind.

I dunno. The analysts were unanimous in their confusion about T2 not taking EA’s offer. It’s obvious they don’t have the slate to pull them through, just several (very) key franchises. EA and T2 would have been amazing together.

I think the T2 board genuinely believed EA would come back with a higher offer closer to the $30 or so they were holding out for. Reading between the lines, they never said a flat no to EA. It was just stalling on the expectancy that GTA sales would be large enough to pump up their share price a bit.

Wrong call in a game of bluff with hindsight though EA probably view it as a bullet dodged now as they might not like to be attempting to integrate an acquisition the size of T2 in the current climate.

Long term I think they’ll do ok, not $27 a share ok but ok…the major worry for next year is that the vast majority of their line up is set to come out in the end of year bloodbath yet at the same time they’re predicting “more competition for less consumer dollars”. That’s not worked out too well for some pretty big games this year let alone next.

They are pretty secure but they do need to invest in lots of smaller short development projects while they still can to smooth out those P&L bumps in the future. A yo-yoing share price will hit higher peaks but also lower troughs, not something long term investors like to see.