Video game stocks gained modestly over past 5 trading sessions in the absence of any major growth driver. However, some important events that made the rounds during this time include Electronic Arts Inc.’s EA game series launch dedicated to female football players and Activision’s ATVI launch of the expansion pack for Destiny. Another development that made headlines was Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s NTDOY collaboration with BBC to offer iPlayer to Wii U users.
Top Stories Over the Last Week
1. Electronic Arts is finally adding a women’s team to its popular soccer game series FIFA. The company’s forthcoming edition FIFA 16 would feature 12 international all-female teams including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden and the United States. The teams will feature in most of the online and offline game modes.
While including a female team is an attractive idea, especially when the U.S. women's soccer team is on the rise, Electronic Arts is not the first one to develop such games. In 2000, UK studio Silicon Dreams added women’s football to its Mia Hamm 64 Soccer and Uefa Dream Soccer titles. However, neither of the games gained popularity.
2. Activision recently announced the expansion pack of its first-person shooter video game — Destiny. The latest expansion — House of Wolves — includes gear upgrade paths, new campaigns with more suspense and new endgame activities. However, the latest game received mixed reviews from users despite being an improvement over Destiny’s previous expansion pack The Dark Below.
3. Scientific Games Corp. SGMS collaborated with Penn National Gaming to launch a suit of systems and game solutions to drive casino revenues and operating efficiencies. The company also announced that the Bally, WMS and Shuffle Master-branded games will account for 44% floor share of new gaming devices. Also, the Plainridge Park Casino will be the first one in the country to implement a Bally play-management system.
4. Wii U owners can now access BBC shows directly on their console through iPlayer, BBC’s Internet streaming catch-up television and radio service, thanks to the collaboration between Nintendo and BBC. Through the Wii U iPlayer app, users can access both HD streaming of live on-demand content, and watch previously aired BBC shows. Currently, the free app is available only to the U.K. users and features content from a host of BBC channels, like BBC One, Two, Three, News and CBBC.
5. Recently, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s TTWO Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel developer Gearbox tripled the drop rate for legendary equipment to make it easier to use Vault Hunter with powerful gears. The final rate adjustment was done through hotfix. Gearbox plans to make the change permanent for future title updates. The change is effective across all platforms, including last-generation and new generation consoles as well as PC.
Performance
The following table shows the price movements of the major video game companies over both the past 5 trading days as well as the 6-month period:
|
Company |
Last 5 Days |
Last 6 Months |
|
ATVI |
0.43% |
36.50% |
|
EA |
0.93% |
62.61% |
|
GLUU |
0.16% |
42.38% |
|
MSFT |
0.06% |
3.83% |
|
NTES |
-4.91% |
55.56% |
|
TTWO |
0.11% |
21.32% |
|
ZNGA |
-1.01% |
25.64% |
Over the last 5 trading sessions, most of the companies registered modest growth. The stock that gained the maximum was Electronic Arts, up 0.9%. The stock which lost the most was NetEase, Inc. NTES, down 4.9%.
Over the 6-month period, Electronic Arts surged the most — nearly 63%. We believe that the continued growth in the company’s mobile gaming audience makes it one of the most consistently performing video game makers in the current times. In addition, strategic collaborations with the likes of Google, Apple and Facebook in developing its gaming platform add to its bottom-line growth over the long term. However, the stock that gained the least over the same time frame was Microsoft Corp. MSFT, up 3.8%.
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