Guitar Hero Will Save the Economy

One industry clearly not worried about a recession: the video-game bidness. That's clear from this morning's news that Grapevine-based GameStop posted first-quarter earnings of $189.8 million -- up, oh, just 46 percent from last year's earnings during the same period. And the reason? Guess. Fine: "New videogame software sales rose...

By Robert Wilonsky

March 18, 2008

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One industry clearly not worried about a recession: the video-game bidness. That's clear from this morning's news that Grapevine-based GameStop posted first-quarter earnings of $189.8 million -- up, oh, just 46 percent from last year's earnings during the same period. And the reason? Guess. Fine: "New videogame software sales rose 38% on the back of sales of popular sequels to the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises. New hardware sales jumped 19% despite shortages of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 in January." Also comes news that GameStop's opening 600 new stores this year -- so newsy it made Pravda. --Robert Wilonsky

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