Tag Archives: Cowen

Cowen analyst Doug Creutz says he has lowered his expectation to toward PlayStation 3 for the year ahead as he doesn’t believe the console has any bona fide system sellers.

“Although there appears to be a reasonably robust slate of games for the PlayStation 3 this year, Sony continues to lack a clear ‘must-own’ title that will drive sales, while its platform continues to be the most expensive in the market in the midst of a consumer slowdown,” he said.

“Meanwhile, highly publicized platform initiatives such as Home have failed to get off the ground.”

His overall assessment of 2008 was just as damning saying: “Following another year in which PS3 unit sales lagged behind the Wii and Xbox 360, it is now clear that Sony has failed to establish the PS3 as the console of choice among hardcore gamers this cycle.”

Creutz now expects PlayStation 3 to sell 4 million units in 2009, compared to his previous forecast of 6.25.

Read the public resaerch note in full at Gama.

By Mike Bowden

Cowen analyst Doug Creutz reckon that Saints Row 2 publisher THQ is “likely miss its guidance” of breaking even for the second half of its March 09 fiscal year.

Creutz says the company won’t hit its target “due to the declining performances of key franchises in the December quarter.”

He says that recent NPD data shows WWE sales were down 22% in the December quarter compared with the previous year. Also, its SpongeBob franchise was down 19%.

He also cut his estimate on first year sales of the company’s flagship title Saints Row 2 to 900,000 from 1 million.

For the forthcoming financial year, Creutz sees profits to fall from 44 cents to 30 cents per share, with revenue of $985.3 million, down from $1.03 billion.

“We think THQ share performance is unlikely to improve unless the company demonstrates renewed earnings stability,” said Crutez.

Thanks, TechTrader.

By Mike Bowden