tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33352312011-11-27T18:40:58.020-05:00Video Games, Digital Stocks and an occassional big idea.Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comBlogger241100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-51393066742311441742008-03-21T13:28:00.007-04:002008-04-25T10:24:58.408-04:00

If you have a chance take a look at the video of Apple's recent March 6th presentation at its software developers conference. Besides announcing that iPhone would be fully compatible with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and essentially targeting the enterprise market, they also showcased announced that they would be opening up iPhone to outside developers.While I am an Apple shareholder and think

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-9254126739109856592008-02-04T18:17:00.004-05:002008-03-22T14:56:45.807-04:00

As far as I can tell, most of the mainstream media has overlooked a possible jewel within Yahoo's sprawling operations. About a year and a half ago Yahoo acquired a promising Web applications start up called Zimbra for $350 million. Zimbra has a really neat Web-based version of what is essentially MSOffice that seems to be superior in many ways to Google Docs. The company recently released

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-36522521608583402142007-12-04T19:27:00.000-05:002007-12-04T21:57:21.247-05:00

On October 27th I wrote a post entitled "Video Games Uber Alles" speculating that Activision (ATVI) and Electronic (ERTS) would be good acquisition candidates for other larger entertainment companies. I put my funny money where my mouth was when I purchased shares of ATVI on www.SocialPicks.com for $19 on November 20, saying that "Guitar Hero was ATVI's Grand Theft Auto." Now Vivendi Universal is

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-34391771648655126692007-10-27T09:40:00.001-04:002007-10-27T10:16:52.852-04:00

Why are stocks like GameStop and Nintendo and Activision among the best performing stocks over the past few years [see stock chart]? Because video gaming has become pervasive. People who were raised on Space Invaders, Tetris and Pong are now the movers and shakers of our society. The video gaming market has swelled from the 16 year old boy locked in his room to practically anyone with a cell

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-70296403390199686562007-06-26T22:44:00.000-04:002007-06-27T13:42:50.020-04:00

With all of the reports of excess capital sloshing around the globe you can't help speculating about potential mergers and buyouts.How about GameStop [GME] - one of my favorite stocks. I just read that the company recently opened it's 1,000th store overseas. Since its acquistion of EB Games, GME has been on a tear. As of the end of Q1 2007, the Grapevine, Texas-based video game retailer had 4816

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-84957943719477530682007-03-22T11:29:00.000-04:002007-03-22T11:37:56.855-04:00

Christopher Rees' wild life is the stuff of Jimmy Buffett songs. His investment track record is more like Warren's.Chris Rees may be the best virtual portfolio manager in the world. In terms of five-year performance his 44.6% annual return, as measured by Marketocracy.com, is the No. 1 of all 88,000 online portfolios it tracks. Still, Rees is quick to point out that he is not "a very smart" guy.

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-91409180821186591582007-02-22T20:46:00.000-05:002007-03-23T00:29:30.846-04:00

As expected the National Association of Broadcasters is lobbying vigorously against the proposed merger between satellite radio companies Sirius[SIRI] and XM[XMSR]. Here are some excerpts from a recent dispatch to its member radio stations:When the FCC authorized two satellite radio operators in 1997, it specifically prohibited the nationwide systems from merging. Nothing has occurred in the 10

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-24545866266256596912007-02-02T16:15:00.000-05:002007-02-02T16:20:52.669-05:00

Here is the lead to an Armchair Guru column I recently posted on Forbes.com. If you want to read the full text and all of the new stock picks, just click link.Thanks to a resurgent stock market, ubiquitous technology and dirt-cheap commissions, America has become a nation of traders again. There are now an estimated 35 million online brokerage accounts, compared with roughly 13 million at the

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-84960396871525104992007-01-05T23:56:00.000-05:002007-01-06T01:24:25.559-05:00

There is no question that hindsight is always 20-20, but when I recently saw that GameStop was having record earnings and its stock was hitting new highs, I couldnt help but think about Barnes and Noble's November 2004 decision to jettison the videogame seller from its retailing empire.I think B&N made a big mistake, though its original shareholders may be pleased to have gotten direct ownership

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-17344551392466485322006-11-18T20:54:00.000-05:002006-11-19T01:09:49.419-05:00

Tonight I decided to stop into a GameStop [GME] store not far from my house in suburban New Jersey to see firsthand the battlefront in the ongoing video game wars. When I got there I saw two display kiosks. One featuring Nintendo's[NTDOY.PK] new Wii and the other featuring Sony's[SNE] new Playstation3. There was a crowd of teens mesmerized by someone "steering" the Wii's remote control wand as

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-11861104296486170542006-11-15T12:47:00.000-05:002006-11-15T15:17:36.502-05:00

Have you been watching the action in video gaming stocks since early July? Activision [ATVI] is up 41% %, Electronic Arts, up 35%, Take Two Interactive, up 66%, retailer GameStop up 34%, and THQ up 43%. Even behemoth Microsoft is up 24% which is more than double the return of the S&P 500 over the same time period.Unfortunately one video gaming company, Sony has been left out of the party and its

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-84838471518150661142006-10-23T00:30:00.000-04:002006-10-23T00:57:53.638-04:00

I was just looking at the Web site, Ajaxian.com and I noticed several very cool new applications that could be disruptive to the current software establishment.If you go to www.iscrybe.com, you will see a video for a new Ajax application called Scrybe which is a Web-based organizer/daybook which combines calendars with notes and seems to have a gazillian smart features including the ability to

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-55376314736397023352006-10-22T20:32:00.000-04:002006-10-22T21:17:24.248-04:00

I was watching CNBC last week and a report came on about how Nielsen Media Research was introducing its well known "ratings" tracking to video games in a service called GamePlay Metrics. An article I read in Brandweek said that in-game advertising would reach $730 million by the end of the decade, but I think the number could be much greater. I am eager to see how well these new ratings are

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1159108869076789242006-09-24T10:15:00.000-04:002006-09-29T21:06:47.126-04:00

About a week ago I was invited to attend a Midtown Manhattan party hosted by Electronic Arts [ERTS] showcasing some of their upcoming video game titles for this holiday season. However what struck me most were not their cool games like Need For Speed Carbon, or great graphics in games like FIFA 2007 but the fact that there was crowd formed around the sole Nintendo Wii console that was set up to

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1157918248467846282006-09-10T15:36:00.000-04:002006-09-10T15:57:28.476-04:00

Many moons ago I interviewed Tom Freston and Sumner Redstone for a story I was doing on Viacom for Forbes Magazine. It was clear then as it is now that Freston was an unorthodox executive who fostered creativity in his colleagues, including Gerry Laybourne, who was then building Nickelodeon. Under Freston's watch most of Viacom's most valuable franchises were created, from MTV to Nickelodeon to

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1144378597368345742006-04-06T22:42:00.000-04:002006-04-06T23:34:04.213-04:00

Fans of HBO’s Sopranos have had a front row seat to what can happen when a strong central power is suddenly weakened or removed. After being shot by his demented Uncle Junior in the season premier, Tony, boss of the North Jersey’s crime family, wound up in a coma on life support during episode two. As it sinks in among his crew that Tony’s survival is in jeopardy, a number of his key capos start

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1143298754818136332006-03-25T09:39:00.000-05:002006-03-25T09:59:14.876-05:00

There has been a lot of press lately documenting trouble in Bill Gate's kingdom. Window's Vista has been delayed, there has been a managment shake up in Redmond and now the guy who headed up the firm's "Live" Web based software is taking over the Window's effort. Meanwhile Google's recent purchase of Web-based MSWord competitor Writely was a clear first shot at the Windows Office Desktop monopoly

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1138033381137721442006-01-23T10:40:00.000-05:002006-01-23T11:32:31.330-05:00

I was a little bit early on my "bold prediction," but as you can see by my "Sneak Peek"on Forbes.comoriginally published in late 2003, I thought that Apple, Disney and Pixar should get together long ago, and that Apple would be one of the key players in the digital entertainment future. Now we are reading that Steve Jobs may sell Pixar to Disney's Iger and that he may become Disney's largest

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1135312206231263942005-12-22T22:31:00.000-05:002005-12-22T23:30:06.276-05:00

A lot has happened since my last posting. Most recently Google [nasdaq:GOOG] announced that it would be investing $1 billion for 5% of AOL. Most of the mainstream business press seemed to focus on the advertising - Google getting access to the AOL network and selling a broader range of ads. I think the ad stuff is a bit of a Trojan horse. The future as George Gilder has been preaching, is all

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1123566971853134092005-08-09T01:32:00.000-04:002005-08-09T12:57:45.896-04:00

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

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1123217277055717132005-08-04T23:54:00.000-04:002005-08-05T00:47:57.090-04:00

There has been a lot of flap over the violence and now sexual references inTakeTwo Interacive's [nasdaq:TTWO]video games. Grand Theft Auto-San Andreas, the companies flagship game from Rockstar, is being singled out by activists and legislators as an example of what is bad about video gaming and pop culture. Now I read that another promising game from TTWO, Bully, is under attack because of its

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1122437441133249652005-07-27T00:03:00.000-04:002005-07-27T00:10:41.140-04:00

In the Summer 2005 edition of Forbes.com Best of The Web, our editors have trained their sights on the rapidly expanding world of blogs, collectively known as the "blogosphere."Blogs (short for Weblogs) started out mostly as personal Web journals. However, thanks to sites like Google’s Blogger, which allows people to easily create blogs in a matter of minutes, these homespun Internet outposts are

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1111907951507589322005-03-27T01:54:00.000-05:002005-04-07T01:00:12.826-04:00

On March 17th I read an article in the New York Times Circuits section that reported that certain video games would soon allow their main characters to use/abuse drugs ranging from marijuana to crack cocaine. The games mentioned include Narc, another from Take Two Interactive called Snow and one from Vivendi Universal called Scarface. I have always been a proponent of the video gaming industry

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3335231.post-1110671637283806522005-03-12T18:53:00.000-05:002005-03-28T00:41:58.043-05:00

What’s next for Apple? In a word, games. Or more precisely video gaming. If there is one thing that most of the digital soothsayers agree upon it is that a key part of the digital future is gaming. That’s why Microsoft has spent billions in capital on developing and supporting its Xbox platform even though it only recently turned a small profit. It is also is why consumer electronics giant Sony

Matt Schifrinnoreply@blogger.com