@Powertrade, The 378-380DKP buy order seems to be coming from someone with spare margin. It could be zukaus, or it could be someone else. It is definitely not me :). I pulled out of this stock long time ago, when I need the money for other investment. I also didn't expect this stock to jump to 4 Million+.
@Joe80, I agree with your analysis (4.2 Million is too high), but since the profit margin is low (4.2 to 3 Million means 30% profit margin, at best), I am not going to short this stock.
From what I've seen on TSE in the past, perhaps Zukaus has seen more accurate numbers and is moving the market towards reality? :) However, I don't see the game as one of his top holdings.
@apujanata, It looks like Layton 1 didn't get boosted that much in Japan after the release of the 2nd game in the series. Layton 1 shipped 700,000 in 2007. So between then and now it has only managed ~229,000.
If US & EU are boosted 500,000, that gets them to 2,090,000, with worldwide sales equaling just over 3 million. It would be a tall order to think another 1.26 million would be sold over that.
The reason is because of the new ad campaign in the US, not limited to the Lisa Kudrow commercial. Its been at the very top of the Amazon charts all month long, despite being full price ($29.99).
I'm personally expecting it to surprise everyone with top 10 or 20 for March NPD.
The only possible rationale (to me), is that with the release on Layton 2 in US & Europe, people expect the old games in the series to have a boost in sales (people that didn't bought #1 to buy it based on their satisfaction level of #2). This happened in Japan when Layton 2 was released, and it is a fair assumption that it will happen again. Whether this boost are sufficiently big enough to made it reach 4.26 Million is anyone's guess.
Notice that Layton series (currently have 3 games, IIRC), have 2.65 Million in Japan. Averaging it gives us 900K / games, which means that series stayed strong throughout 3 games, which is an achievement by itself.
The actual rank is rank 30 : 865.954 for Layton 2 and rank 36 : 718.147 for Layton 3. Layton 3 is only out about 5 months (since 27/11/2008), and I am pretty sure it will reach 800K+ by end of 2009.
Anyone know why this has jumped over a million in 2 weeks time? With VGC having it at only 2.61 million, what's the rationale for it being at 4.26 million?
@PhilHarrision, People take VGC #'s with a grain of salt. Since I did not see any recent #'s from publisher, NPD, etc. I figured VGC would atleast give me some insight. Thank you vm for providing it.
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The 378-380DKP buy order seems to be coming from someone with spare margin. It could be zukaus, or it could be someone else. It is definitely not me :).
I pulled out of this stock long time ago, when I need the money for other investment. I also didn't expect this stock to jump to 4 Million+.
@Joe80,
I agree with your analysis (4.2 Million is too high), but since the profit margin is low (4.2 to 3 Million means 30% profit margin, at best), I am not going to short this stock.