THQ Making Another Play

What a quarter for THQ (Nasdaq: THQI)! The company's Q4 net sales jumped 16% to $172.1 million. Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations came in at $0.08, versus a loss of $0.14 in the previous year. This publisher knows how to play the game.

THQ also fared well for the full fiscal year, as sales increased 27% to slightly more than $1 billion, and earnings per diluted share from continuing operations nearly doubled to $0.96. What's more, THQ said that operational cash flow expanded by better than 50% for the year.

Shareholders should be pleased by the performance, and by the company's ability to invest in licenses that drive earnings value. THQ has made the most of its relationship with Pixar titles. Its two other long-term franchises with World Wrestling Entertainment and Nickelodeon characters also showed investors the money.

Although a majority of THQ's revenue stems from its licensing initiatives, I am enamored of its desire to build out original intellectual assets such as Company of Heroes and Saint's Row. The success of its own franchises has led the company to begin developing new ones, which are scheduled to appear on all gaming platforms, including Sony's (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Xbox 360.

Speaking of the pipeline, THQ has big plans for Nintendo's latest platform. We all know that the Wii is kicking Sony's and Xbox's you-know-whats, so it's crucial that every publisher worth its salt produces high-quality content for it. According to the conference call, THQ intends to expand its presence on the Wii via almost a dozen titles scheduled for release next year. That's not all, however; THQ also plans on delivering original content exclusively for the platform. The Wii, with its innovative controller system, is proving to be quite the competitor in this next-generation era; it arguably caught the industry by surprise, so it's a wise move for THQ to concentrate on it with both licensed and original titles. The publisher's goal is explicit: It intends to capture a larger share of the Wii market -- and chances are good that it will succeed.  

The downside to all of this is THQ's expected loss for next quarter, which exceeds Wall Street's expectations. Yet its promise of future content still has me bullish on the company. THQ's quality pipeline has what it takes to coexist with Activision (Nasdaq: ATVI) and Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) -- the latter of which recently reported results, too.

So let's celebrate THQ's fiscal-year results -- SpongeBob will be passing out Krabby Patties for everyone! The company has a great portfolio of licensed games, earnings and cash flow are growing, its original properties are successful, and management seems to know what it's doing. Keep this one on a watch list for pullbacks and further due diligence.  

Play some more Foolish articles:

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• THQ's Piston Cup Challenge
• Activision Still Active

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Fool contributor Steven Mallas owns shares of Activision and Disney. As of this writing, he was ranked 5,680 out of 28,635 rated investors in the Motley Fool CAPS system. Don't know what CAPS is? Check it out. The Fool has a disclosure policy.