Take-Two Interactive Software (Nasdaq: TTWO) shareholders have had a bad week. First, the company's dreams of becoming a force in the video game sports arena took a monster hit when rival Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) announced that it had signed an exclusive deal with the NFL and its players' union on Monday (see "EA's Perfect Score") thereby slamming Take-Two to the turf. Then after the bell yesterday, Take-Two reported lower than expected fourth-quarter earnings and offered a weak outlook, sending shares down 3.4% to $32.33 in early trading today.
The fourth quarter wasn't actually that bad. On the strength of the super smash hit Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the Sony (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 2, revenues in the quarter skyrocketed 57.8% to $438 million, boosting net income 138% to $62.6 million, or $1.36 per diluted share. Still, even backing out a $7.5 million charge related to a proposed settlement of an SEC investigation, earnings would have clocked in at $1.52 per share -- still shy of the $1.55 per share analyst estimate.
The settlement would resolve the company's recurring accounting issues (see "Take-Two Tanks on SEC Notice" and "Take-Two's Take Two") that were subject to an SEC investigation dating back to December 2001.
The bad news here was the company's forward guidance. Take-Two said that first-quarter earnings are expected between $1.00 and $1.10 per share on $440 to $460 million in net sales. While the company propped up the bottom end of the sales range, the outlook is still short of the analyst earnings estimate of $1.15 per share and $461 million in sales.
For the second quarter, Take-Two expects to show a loss of $0.10 to $0.20 per share on $170 to $190 million in sales, while analysts had expected a $0.14 per share profit on $227 million in sales. As a result, the company forecasts fiscal 2005 earnings of $2.00 to $2.20 per share on $1.2 billion to $1.25 billion in sales, short of the analyst earnings estimate of $2.22 per share on $1.26 billion in sales.
The full-year guidance represents a downward revision, which wouldn't seem surprising given Monday's announcement regarding the deal between EA and the NFL and players' union. EA's exclusive deal means that Take-Two and partner Sega won't be producing a truly competitive football game next year (assuming they even produce one at all), as they have in recent years using Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ESPN brand. While the ESPN football game didn't add much to the bottom line this past summer with its $20 price tag, it did provide a sales boost -- one that most likely won't occur next summer.
What is a bit of a surprise is the size of the second-quarter shortfall, as the company will have a competitive product -- the heavily promoted street racer Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition -- debut in late January.
Separately, Take-Two announced the June release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Xbox and the PC.
If product quality is the only measure, then I think Take-Two is a relatively attractive stock. But the real worry lingers. Will Take-Two ever put it all together? Because if it isn't an SEC investigation, then it's a competitor establishing a monopoly, or -- as was the case yesterday afternoon -- a truly uninspiring earnings outlook.
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Fool contributor Jeff Hwang owns shares of Electronic Arts.
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