EA Sports is promising a "simpler, quicker, deeper" NFL experience when Madden NFL 11 ships on August 10. The publisher's football franchise remains one of the biggest game releases each year, and the launch is practically an event unto itself. Although sales for Madden 10 were off to a slow start last year, they did eventually rebound, and the good news for EA Sports currently is that pre-order interest for Madden 11 seems high.
"Looking out into August, we think pre-orders at GameStop for this year’s Madden NFL 11 title are tracking ahead of last year. It is still a bit early and it will be more important to measure the trend a week or two prior to its August 10th launch date, but at least the early signs are positive," noted Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia.
While EA has been talking up Madden 11 for a while now, the hype train is also starting at GameStop. The retailer is holding a six-week "Madden Mondays" countdown, which will feature exclusive videos and content from the game, including weekly videos and content from the development team. Additionally, a sweepstakes called Gridiron Game Changers is being held, where through Aug. 16, fans can text a weekly keyword from the "Madden Mondays" website to 65579 to be entered to win a VIP trip for two to the marquee EA Sports Madden NFL 11 launch event or the GameStop Madden NFL 11 tournament finals event.
Speaking of GameStop, Bhatia also recommended the stock. The game industry has suffered through some down months, but GameStop is doing well for itself. "While video game industry software sales have been lackluster in recent months, we believe GME continues to meaningfully outperform the industry and gain significant market share. Yet, the stock has lagged, providing, in our opinion, a good opportunity to go long the stock at current valuation (7x CY10 EPS), regardless of one’s views on longer-term digital downloading trends," noted Bhatia.
