In an SEC filing, Icahn declared his ownership of more than nine million shares, worth $70.6 million, and included his opinion that Take-Two's shares are "undervalued," which means he wants to talk to the company's leadership about turning that around, and 11 percent is clout enough to have that conversation.

Michael Pachter, the Wedbush analyst frequently quoted by the gaming press, told Gamasutra his firm thinks Icahn "intends to force the company to consider a sale." Pachter also pointed out that Icahn and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick are on the Blockbuster board of directors.

From the filing, it appears Icahn's stake in Take-Two appeared to jump significantly in the past two weeks, when the publisher first announced it would fall short of its own guidance on fiscal earnings.
Activist Investor Icahn Boosts Take-Two Stake [Gamasutra]

GameStop was trading for $21.73 around 1 p.m. U.S. Eastern time, $2.11 off its opening price of $23.84 and a decline of 8.8 percent. It had hit as low as $21.36 earlier in the day.

Bloomberg News reported that an analyst advised clients that GameStop, whose stores have been located in close proximity to Walmart to capitalize on the retail giant's foot traffic, may have to drop its prices to remain competitive. Walmart's price cuts affect 25 games, including Left 4 Dead 2, and Uncharted 2, and take as much as 20 percent off their MSRP through Dec. 24. Walmart is also offering a $50 gift card with the purchase of a Wii.

GameStop Falls Most in S&P 500 After Walmart Cuts Game Prices [Bloomberg]

"What I think is something that we've missed in the industry and is something other participants have been doing is the proportion of business that is used," Robinson told DJ Newswires. "We've not developed the capability to the extent that other participants have. It's a very margin-rich portion, so I think there's opportunity in that business."

This is all in response to the site Bloggingstocks.com, which speculated on Tuesday that GameStop could be an acquisition target. Of course, it might also cost north of $4 billion to do that, which is dough Best Buy doesn't have. Leveraging the deal or doing a stock swap then commits Best Buy to the bricks-and-mortar game retail business for the long term, and Robinson noted the industry's shift toward digital distribution. He also pointed out the company's test of in-store kiosks that buy back used games.

Best Buy US CFO: Used Video Games 'Strategically Interesting' [Dow Jones Newswires on The Wall Street Journal.com]

Philip Veneziano, say hello to a customer base even more finicky and prone to complaint than high-strung white collar workers: the video gamer. In a statement announcing his arrival, Veneziano said Atari faces "a tremendous opportunity to gain market share".

In a way, it already is. Atari also announced its first quarter revenue grew 30 percent compared to 2008, attributed to two factors: Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and the fact Atari published about zero titles in the preceding year.

Atari Appoints Chief Financial Officer [Edge Online]

GameStop stock has taken a bit of a dip today, currently trading at around $28.84, nearly 3% lower than yesterday's closing price of $29.70. The drop comes after the NPD Group's March results for the video game industry, which indicated a flat first quarter, with year over year sales declining in March.

GameStop issued a statement this morning reaffirming its original financial outlook, citing strong sales of games like Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, Halo Wars, and Killzone 2 along with the launch of Nintendo's DSi as forces that will help maintain its guidance of $.40 to $.42 earnings per share, with full year earnings still expected to increase between +18% and +22%.

In other words, don't worry about the NPD results. The company is just fine. I bet all those stockholders selling their shares feel silly now.

GameStop shares fall on video game report [Yahoo! Finance]

The move would allow the company to retain control over its operations while it reorganizes to pay its creditors.

We searched the filings for U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Ohio but could find nothing under Brighter Minds Media or the attorney said to represent them. But if it was filed late Friday it may not show up in the system until Monday or later.

World of Goo was the big hit out of Brighter Minds' family friendly catalog of titles last year. It took top indie game honors at the 2008 Video Game Awards, and also won the prize for design innovation and technical excellence at the 2008 Independent Games Festival. It was our runner up for best indie game.

It was also popular among pirates; released DRM-free, developer 2D Boy estimated that it suffered from a nearly 90 percent piracy rate.

World of Goo Publisher Brighter Minds Media Goes Bankrupt [GameDaily BIZ via Joystiq

I don't know MLG's financials but, usually, you don't get another round of funding because you're insanely profitable. At least it's from one of MLG's original partners, Oak Investment Partners, which gave them $25 mil back in 2006. But it is growing — even if the three- and four-figure growth percentages it quotes mean it was starting with comparatively small numbers.

Here is MLG's full press release. Note the leet online broadcast audience growth:

Major League Gaming, the professional video game league, announced it has received a $7.5 million follow-on investment from Oak Investment Partners. MLG’s explosive growth in online and live audience, as well as its continued success in attracting major sponsors, has made it the premier competitive video gaming property in the world.
“MLG has become a cultural phenomenon, and the management team has made competitive gaming really matter for pros, fans, and marketers,” said Ed Glassmeyer, managing partner, Oak Investment Partners. “We have great confidence that the company will continue this path to success and that the challenging economic environment will provide new opportunities for investment and growth.”

“We set out to build the first digital sport the world had ever seen. From the beginning, Oak has been there to provide the capital and expertise to enable us to create a global, cross-platform business to support that vision,” said Matthew Bromberg, president and CEO of Major League Gaming.

2008 was a breakout year for Major League Gaming as its sports media business saw triple- and-quadruple digit growth:

• 1337% year-over-year growth in its online broadcast audience, with 503,000 unique men under 30 watching the Dallas Playoffs in early October

• 4.4 million online matches played in 2008, up 625% over 2007

• 7.0 million unique users each month according to Google Analytics, up 109% over 2007

• An average of 15,000 attendees at each of the live competitions in 2008, up 500% over 2007.

Major League Gaming

Founded in 2002, Major League Gaming (MLG) is the dominant media property exclusively targeting the approximately 40 million consumers in North America who have a passion for playing video games as a competitive social activity. The company exclusively represents the best professional gamers and gives millions of aspiring gamers around the world an opportunity to compete, improve their skills, and socialize through our thriving online competitive community and live Pro Circuit competitions. MLG sponsorship partners include Dr Pepper, GameStop, HP, Old Spice, Ballpark, Panasonic, Stride, Ubisoft, Bungie and Xbox 360. For more information: www.mlgpro.com.

Major League Gaming Secures Additional Funding [Daily Games News]

How about by making saving into a game? Takara Tomy's Wallet Saver is a handheld LCD game shaped like a purse that lets you enter your budget and financial details and then plays like an RPG. Every purchase you make in real life gets entered into the game using the stylus (you can even open up the 'purse' and store your receipts inside) and influences gameplay.

Stay within your budget and things will go smoothly, but conflict will arise if you go and waste your money of stupid purchases like, er, novelty LCD games.

Personal finance pocket RPG

The Wall Street Journal reports that Redstone's 87% stake in Midway has been purchased by investor Mark Thomas for around $0.0012 a share, a substantial loss considering that Midway stock closed at $0.38 per share on Friday afternoon. Why the insane discount? With the purchase, Mr. Thomas will also assume $70 million of senior secured and unsecured debt from Redstone's holding company National Amusements, so selling $30 million in stock for $100,000 in order to rid yourself of $70 million in debt makes a certain kind of sense.

It remains to be seen what Mark's plans are for the company, which is facing NYSE delisting. Can their top secret game save them, or is this one step closer to an early grave?

Redstone Sells Control of Midway to Ease Debt [Wall Street Journal]

Hardest hit? It's looking like Activision Blizzard in the States, which dropped nearly 14% today. GameSpot ran the numbers on the publishers trading on the NASDAQ and it's not looking pretty. Foreign stocks got a beating today too, with Ubisoft losing value to the tune of $17.92 over a period of a few hours. Ouch.

Careful out there, kids. Watch out for falling investors.

Market freefall drags down game stocks [GameSpot]

I'm a little surprised that they weren't able to grab up more of their stock, but I'm even more surprised that they planned on financing the entire buy up with cash on hand. Am I the only one who thinks that the BlizzAct folks walk around with life-sized, solid-gold avatars that they dress up for fun. Wasteful! I'd spend all my WoW loot on monkeys and monkey training. And maybe monkey diapers... maybe.

Activision Blizzard Announces Final Results of Self-Tender Offer
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug 19, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced the final results of its tender offer to purchase up to 146,500,000 shares of its outstanding common stock at a price of $27.50 per share, net to the tendering stockholders in cash, less any applicable withholding taxes and without interest. The tender offer expired at 5:00 p.m., New York time, on Wednesday, August 13, 2008.
Pursuant to the tender offer, Activision Blizzard has purchased 85,916 shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $27.50 per share for a total cost of approximately $2.3 million, excluding fees and expenses relating to the tender offer. Activision Blizzard is funding the purchase of shares in the tender offer with available cash on hand.
The tender offer was agreed to be made in connection with the business combination between Activision, Inc., now known as Activision Blizzard, Inc., and Vivendi Games, Vivendi's interactive entertainment business — which includes Blizzard Entertainment's(R) World of Warcraft(R). In accordance with the business combination agreement, the purchase price per share for the tender offer was equal to the price per share that Vivendi paid for the stock it purchased from Activision.
About Activision Blizzard
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a worldwide pure-play online, PC and console game publisher with leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry.
Activision Blizzard maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, Australia, Chile, India, Japan, China, South Korea and the region of Taiwan. More information about Activision Blizzard and its products can be found on the company's website, http://www.activisionblizzard.com.

The $23.6M loss however is one-third the $69.7 fiscal assbeating Atari took in FY07, precipitating the whole Infogrames merger/buyout/$20M loan announced April 30 and taking effect the third quarter of this year. Also, Atari's loss includes about $6.5 million in corporate restructuring charges. rather than regular business. Still, revenue was about $80 million, less than $122 million of a year before. So there wasn't the kind of expenses that go toward publishing crappy games games, but there wasn't anything to sell either.

Some brands, no matter how sickly they become, can just go on forever because they got in the race early, no matter where they dropped out. Just ask United Press International. Or Ovaltine. So if Atari is shifting to social, casual, whatever you want to call it, that's probably going after brand of low-awareness game consumer who thinks Atari's been around forever and will give games under its title a benefit of the doubt that the publisher didn't earn in the past five years.

Atari Reports 23.6M Loss for FY2008[Shacknews]

So ... now what? Analysts quoted in a Friday San Francisco Chronicle story still think the deal will get done. Michael Pachter cited the Wall Street Journal story that places Rockstar's Dan Houser in the pivot, as his contract with Take-Two is up next year and he's open to EA ownership. Pachter's reasoning: Houser would broker the deal in hopes of being rewarded by his new employer. EA talks about how GTA IV's success was already built into its offer to Take-Two, so surely GTA IV's success is already built into Take-Two's relationship with Houser. A grateful EA might be willing to throw in a premium Houser couldn't negotiate otherwise.

Even though the deadline was not extended, as some suspected, that by itself doesn't preclude another offer. Weekend deadline negotiations are usually for labor unions and management. They certainly aren't covered by amateurs like yours truly, or the Agence France Presse writer who called the game "Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City Stories." We're not that well sourced. Once the regular writers and analysts get back in the office this week, someone will say something.

Deadline Passes in EA Bid to Buy Take-Two [AFP/Yahoo News, via Joystiq]

"We are continually looking for ways to enhance the player experience on the PLAYSTATION®Network, and downloadable content through the PLAYSTATION Store is just one of our areas of focus," said Grace Chen, Senior Manager for the PLAYSTATION Store. “We anticipate that this price adjustment will meet the expectations of our Canadian consumers and provide them with a better PLAYSTATION Network experience."

So what's the damage?

According to Reuters, Oppenheimer cut its stake in T2 by half, with FMR LLC dropping its 14.75% ownership of the company down to 2.75%. That's approximately 8.8 million and 2 million shares, respectively, with neither firm giving reason for the sale.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is quoted as saying that a speculated shareholder holdout for better buyout terms may be out of the question, now that two of the bigger owners of Take-Two are bailing out.

Take-Two is planning to announce its quarterly earning on Tuesday, so we'll see what developments occur soon enough.

Take-Two shareholders slash stakes [Yahoo/Reuters]

While most of the call repeated what John Riccitiello told us in an interview on Sunday, they also had Warren Jenson, EA's Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, on the line to talk about the potential impact the purchase might have on both companies. It's quite interesting, delving into the possible future of Take-Two's IPs and such.

As we already knew, this offer actually started with talks back in December and included a slightly smaller offer before coming to a head over the weekend. Jenson also reiterated just how good a deal it will be to Take-Two shareholders, pointing out that EA believes that pretty soon no one, not even EA, will be willing to pay this much for the company.

But the most interesting part of the call seems to come when Jenson outlines why the deal is a winner for EA.

• There is significant opportunity to drive operational synergies. We would expect synergies in the corporate and publishing organizations.
• We can help increase the sales of Take-Two's titles and bring their IP to new platforms - by leveraging EA's global packaged goods, online and wireless organizations.
• We would add incredible talent to EA's creative team. This deal brings together a wealth of industry talent - which can blossom under our decentralized label structure.

So the way I read that, it's two pluses and one minus. On the positive side, as Fahey already pointed out, EA could perhaps blend some of the two companies franchises to create some really interesting titles. They could also perhaps get some very talented people to work on other label's games. Both have some interesting potential.

Then they drop the leveraging bomb. Was it really necessary to point out the possibility of great games like Grand Theft Auto and BioShock going mobile? (Yes, I know there's already a BioShock cell game, but it's still depressing to think about.)

Final Call Script [EA Take 2]

Our previous coverage:
EA CEO/ Take-Two Chairman Talk Take Over Bid
The Take-Two Letters: EA Rejected
EA or Not EA: The Take Two Question
Take-Two Stock Jumps 47% In Wake Of EA Proposal

Nintendo stock today dropped to a seven-month low as Japanese stock plummeted for a second day in reaction to contracting U.S. service industries and fear of a recession.

Nintendo fell 5.9 percent to 45,800 yen, the lowest it's been since July 2 and Rohm Co, the maker of parts of the Wii's controller, dropped 6.4 percent, heading for the lowest close it's seen since January 1997. The Kyoto-based company yesterday lowered its annual net-income target by 25 percent for the year, which lead to Mizuho Securities Co. downgrading them to a hold from a buy.

Nintendo sold three times as many Wii in the U.S. as they did in Japan last quarter, seemingly tying the companies financial success to the U.S. economy.

Japan Stocks Fall as U.S. Services Contract; Nintendo Drops [Bloomberg]

The jump in Nintendo stock was part of a Japanese stock rebound spurred by the cut which came after the worst two-day drop in that stock in 17 years. Ironically the cut actually hurt Sony, which saw a 2.7 percent drop, spurring at least one investment group to change its rating on Sony from neutral to buy.

It's pretty amazing to me to think that the Japanese economy, right now, seems to be running on a game engine and that it's not even a next-gen one.

Japan's Stocks Rebound After U.S. Federal Reserve Cuts Rate [Bloomberg]

Nintendo's fiscal year may not end until March, but with the year the company's been having chances are pretty good that the company could be announcing that they expect to do better than predicted in January. That's what happened at the beginning of this year and if doesn't happen again at the beginning of next year there's a chance that investors could be a little ticked, according to an anonymous Nintendo Stock Blogger. It's ironic that the companies success could lead investors to expect constant jumps in earnings.

Of course with record Wii sales, sell-outs around the country and rumors that the Wii may be about to take the top console spot you'd think an upward modification has to be in the cards. My money is on big financial news in the coming weeks.

Nintendo Stockowners Anxiously Await Announcement [Nintendo Stock]

http://nintendostock.blogspot.com/