Analyst Ranks Game Market Capitalization

According to an analyst report from DFC Intelligence presenting an end-of-year wrap on game company valuations, the market value of leading game companies has increased by 7 percent from February through December 2005, despite a generally disappointing second half of the year. In examining trends from the end of the last game hardware generation, the suggestion is made that current lagging results are fairly consistent with a similar transition five years ago. Assuming there is no significant delay in the PlayStation 3’s arrival, the analysts suggest that game company stock could still increase in 2006, due to excitement over the new formats. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the report, though, is in a ranking of the overall market capitalization for various game companies between February 8th and December 15th of last year. DFC Intelligence places Microsoft at the top of the list with a market increase of 1 percent to $288,386 million, although this appears to be a valuation of the company in its entirety, rather than just its Xbox division. Sony is placed second in terms of market value with a figure of $36,974 million, up 7 percent over the course of the year. Following the success of World of WarCraft, Vivendi Universal is next, again valuing the entire company, with an increase of 8 percent to $36,290 million, followed by Nintendo, which rises 15 percent to $18,565 million. Electronic Arts is pushed into fifth place, with a fall of 17 percent over the eleven months to a market value of $16,184. Other significant falls include Take-Two Interactive who after the 'Hot Coffee' controversy and with no new home console iteration of Grand Theft Auto drop 24 percent to $1,276 million. Atari registered the most precipitous drop, though, down 53 percent to $154 million. Notable increases included Sega Sammy, up 28 percent to $10,544 million, Konami up 20 percent to $2,989 million, Midway up a massive 144 percent to $2,059 million, THQ up 33 percent to $1,489 million, Ubisoft up 34 percent to $943 million and Capcom up 16 percent to $700 million. The merger of Namco Bandai saw the combined companies’ value rise 198% to $4,194 million, with SCi benefiting from the acquisition of Eidos in a similar manner, and rising 88 percent to $744 million.