Electronics Boutique Cuts Profit Expectation

In a discourse call for investors today, nationwide retail chain Electronics Boutique chop its expectations for earnings in its recently-conclud quarter, presenting another sign of a slack period in the games business running from one side the end of summer and early fall. For the three month ending November 1 EB wait fors earnings per share of five or six cent compared to an original expectation of 14 to 18 cent and globule of 7% in comparable-store sales.

EB went in to the quarter expecting useful news. "In July and early August, sales of fresh releases exceeded our expectations," representatives said. "We believed this indicated a general uptick in software purchasing, driven by the agency of continued growth in the installed hardware base."

However, the three month of August, September, and November saw that incline reverse. Several key PC and cheer game releases were delayed without of the quarter, leaving not many strong games to make up for their awaited sales. The lack of A-list games necessarily slowed hardware sales as a effect -- EB said hardware sales upon all major platforms fell short of expectations.

The launch of Nokia's N-Gage handheld likely also helped sales fall short of expectations. Nokia shipped far more units of hardware and software than it was able to put up to sale and EB, one of the system's robust supporters at launch, likely took a rigorous hit during the system's first three weeks.

The games industry can gaze forward to better news above the next two quarters, however. The holiday shopping season will obviously deliver a boost to retailers and publishers alike, and lock opener games delayed into 2004 should provide a boost in the late winter and spring, ordinarily slack periods for game sales.

Copyright ?© 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserv Originally appearing in 1UP