Electronic Arts Defines Financial Delays To Harry Potter Game (ERTS, TWX)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Electronic_arts_logoElectronic Arts Inc (NASDAQ:ERTS) has confirmed the release of the Harry Potter video game, although this might not be good as you’d think for a "feed me now" attitude on Wall Street.  The video game giant and Time Warner Inc.’s (NYSE: TWX) Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will issue the game for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince™" video game next summer.  This puts it essentially alongside the Warner Bros.’ film. on J.K. Rowling’s sixth Harry Potter book.

Unfortunately, there is a delay of the release of this game now thatthe movie release date was also delayed.  The SEC filing alongside theofficial press release said that the video game had originally plannedto be released in November.  The studio also noted that it wasexpecting this video game to contribute roughly $120 million in revenueand approximately $0.13 per share for the fiscal year-end of March 31, 2009.

Shares are actually indicated higher this morning pre-market, but thatmay be tied to the market joys in financial stocks more than the actualbenefit to video game sales this Monday.  Analysts had slightly trimmedestimates for fiscal March-2009 already.  But it doesn’t look this hasbeen reflected in the estimates yet since analystsonly make adjustments after companies formally lower targets.   FirstCall has consensus estimates for fiscal March-2009 are EPS of $1.52 on $5.13 billion in revenue.

Jon C. Ogg
September 8, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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