I just got came back from standing in line at midnight at a GameStop in Clifton, NJ to pick up a pre-ordered copy of Madden 2006 from Electronic Arts [ERTS]. There were about 200 thug looking teens and twenty-somethings waiting in line with excitement. Most walked away with the Xbox version and I was the only one getting it for my son's Nintendo [NTDOY]GameCube. He will be exstatic tomorrow.
Now assuming that my local GameStop [GME] is pretty typical, and considering that there are 4,000 of these stores including EBGames outlets (soon part of GameStop), and considering that this game costs over $50, I think ERTS could bring in $40 million or so from Madden in the first 24 hours. And I think the dollar volume could be double that, easily. Now this may not be as big as Halo 2, but salees will still be very strong. So I think their shares could move tomorrow, based on the news. I bought a small number of ERTS shares a while ago because I reasoned that they are the top video gaming franchise in the business, and in my opinion could represent a juicy merger partner for another media/entertainment company one day. So will the the stock move tomorrow on strong sales of this title? Or will a malaise continue to afflict ERTS shares?
