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Revenues are climbing consistently across the video game industry but in the seasonal business, some publishers are struggling more than others to wring profits from the windfall this summer.  Activision Blizzard, the newly minted combination of Activision and Vivendi Games, isn’t having as much of a problem.  With franchises like Guitar Hero pushing sales, the company announced strong earnings result Thursday for Activision’s last quarter of independence.  They also revealed a joint venture with Logitech to create new controllers for the next installment of the music game franchise.

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The monthly NPD reports tend to give a decent macro perspective on the video game industry economy in the U.S. market but there’s nothing like earnings season to unwrap the details.  Yesterday, Sony and Electronic Arts opened their books.  Sales were up.  Today, Nintendo, THQ and Capcom rounded out the story.  They and Disney, all reported results.  Here’s the earnings wrap up for all four consolidated to a single Metue report:

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Earnings season is always a busy time in the corporate finance world but for those watching the media and entertainment sectors, Tuesday was a day of particular information overload.  DreamWorks Animation, Electronic Arts, Sony and Viacom all reported quarterly results.  The news was mixed. There were some bright spots and some unpleasant surprises too.  One by one we’ve got the four consolidated into one place; a single stop to summarize all four quarterly performances.

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Streaming movies online can be expensive but not so much so that Netflix has any reason to worry. The mail-order-DVD pioneer came out Friday with better than expected Q2 earnings and up-adjusted guidance for 2008.

By the numbers, overall, Q2 net income rose 3.8% to 26.6m (42 cents a share), up from $25.6m or 37 cents a share for the same period a year ago.  Total sales were up 11% to $337.6m.  Netflix had previously forecast revenue in the range of $334m to $339m.  Excluding special items, profit was 45 cents a share, ahead of Reuters analyst estimates by about 4cents.

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Ben Franklin famously said only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. That maxim may be true but in these finicky financial times, another element might fit too:  guidance below expectations sinks stocks.  It doesn’t matter if a company routinely underestimates future performance and then exceeds those expectations.  Conservatism isn’t rewarded.  It doesn’t matter if a company sets new performance records.  The past isn’t rewarded.  What matters, all that seems to matter (at least when it comes to short-term stock performance), is meeting or beating the analyst gold standard and projecting a better than expected future. As Apple proved yet again today, it’s a simple truth: Guide Lower than Analysts and the Stock Price Will Pay.

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Lawyers rarely take tort law cases to trial.  By some measures more than 90% of these cases are settled outside of judge or jury. According to the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, of 98k such cases in 2002 and 2003, only 2% were decided at trial.  The rationale is that it is usually safer and less expensive to settle with a sure thing than risk the uncertainty and cost of trial.   Apparently, proxy fights with activist shareholders share that in common.  Despite increasing momentum, and the recent pledged support of a major shareholder, Yahoo today agreed to settle their proxy fight for board control with Carl Icahn.

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Intel kicked off the technology earnings season with positive surprises earlier this week but Thursday, the keg seemed to run dry early at the party and things turned grim.  Google and Microsoft both released earnings and neither company satisfied the appetites of a nervous market.   The initial reaction was to buckle the seat belt and grab on, the ride looked like it was about to get rough; and in fact it did.  Google’s news led to a more than 10% sell off in after-hours trading.  The bright side: Google’s news wasn’t really bad.  The selloff, or at least the rationale for it, appears to have been premature.

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