Wall Street Continues To Batter Game Stocks

Yet another analyst took a swipe at the game publishing sector, downgrading a number of publisher based on the belief that game sales will not grow as fast as earlier expected due to "weak consumer spending, slowing hardware sales and pricing pressure on software". The analyst, Chris DeBiase of Goldman Sachs, downgraded Activision, THQ and Electronic Arts to "underperform" from "in-line". He said that recent sales data from NPD pointed to just 7.3% year-over-year growth, well shy of DeBiase's expectation for a whopping 20-25% growth. At midday, shares of Electronic Arts are down $4.60, or 7.5%, to $56.72. Activision is off $1.10, or 6.5%, to $15.72. THQ is even.