Need for Speed: Underground from Electronic Arts (EA) and True Crime: Streets of L.A. from Activision -- both for PS2 -- again were the top 2 rented videogames in the U.S., Rentrak’s preliminary Home Video Essentials data for the week ended Jan. 25 showed Thurs. Rentrak said Need, in its 10th week of availability, made an additional $190,276 in rentals in the week for $4.38 million to date, while True, in its 12th week, made an additional $145,428 for a total $4.02 million. Once again, PS2 dominated the rental chart, as every game in the top 10 was for Sony Computer Entertainment’s console. EA again led publishers, this time with 5 titles in the top 10. Its other games in the top 10 were Madden NFL 2004 at #4 (down one in its 24th week, earning an additional $127,578 for a total $6.31 million), Medal of Honor: Rising Sun at #6 again in its 11th week ($109,62 and $4.79 million), NFL Street at #7 (up 20 in its 2nd week, $104,874 and $166,761), The Sims: Bustin’ Out at #9 again in its 6th week ($91,197 and $1.20 million). Activision’s Tony Hawk’s Underground again was #5, in its 13th week ($112,444 and $4.30 million). Rounding out the top 10 were Atari’s Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 at #3 (up one in its 8th week), Sony’s SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs at #8 (down one in its 12th week), THQ’s WWE Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain at #10 (down 2 in its 13th week). On the DVD/VHS movie front, Columbia TriStar’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico was the top-rented title in its first full week of availability, Rentrak said. The title earned $7.31 million in the week on the 2 formats for $7.41 million to date. Also new in the top 10 were Disney’s Open Range at #2 ($6.40 million and $6.49 million) and Lions Gate’s horror film Cabin Fever at #4 ($4.76 million and $4.84 million).

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has preliminary determined to revoke the antidumping (AD) duty order on coumarin from China for all entries with a time of entry on or after February 1, 2003, the earliest date for which there are entries which have not been subject to an administrative review.

Shares in Atari stock tumbled in the U.S. after the company said it planned to delay release of its highly anticipated game DRIV3R to June 1 from March and warned that results for its 3rd quarter ended Dec. 31 would be lower than expected. Saying it had sold “more than 12 million units worldwide” of DRIV3R’s predecessors -- Driver and Driver 2 -- Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell said “we believe that this additional time” before the new game’s release “will give our marketing team the ability to exploit DRIV3R’s full potential.” The company said “based on a preliminary review of results from holiday sales,” it expected to report sales of $190 million and a profit of $20.5-$22.5 million (17-19? per share), down from the $215-$235 million in sales and profit of $28-$36 million (23-30?) it had predicted in Nov. Atari said it also was “revising its full-year fiscal 2004 results, based upon a number of factors, including preliminary holiday sales information and the shift of DRIV3R into the fiscal 2005 first quarter.” As a result, it said it now expected to report sales of $460-$470 million, and “breakeven” earnings before a $39.4 million one-time noncash dividend relating to its Sept. 2003 recapitalization and public offering. Including the dividend, Atari said it expected a 40? loss per share based on generally accepted accounting principles. Atari originally had estimated it would report sales of $560-$590 million and a profit of $35-$45 million (36-46?) for the year before the one-time noncash dividend. Bonnell said: “The strong performance of franchises such as Dragon Ball Z combined with a solid start for several of our holiday releases was unfortunately not enough to offset the underperforming consumer acceptance of other titles in our holiday lineup. While we are disappointed that our financial performance is below our expectations, we remain optimistic that, prior to the dividend, we will report breakeven full-year net income results on the strength of several new titles, including Unreal Tournament 2004 for the PC and Unreal 2: The Awakening for Xbox, Trivial Pursuit: Unhinged on PlayStation 2 and Xbox and Backyard Baseball 2005 featuring Alex Rodriguez on PlayStation 2.” He said: “Fiscal 2005 will now include DRIV3R and several exciting new properties such as Transformers, Shadow Ops, Duel Masters and Sid Meier’s Pirates, which will join a roster that will also feature new titles from our Dragon Ball Z, Dungeon & Dragons, Terminator and Backyard Sports franchises. It is a compelling release slate.” The company said it would announce its 3rd-quarter results Feb. 2 after the close of regular trading. Separately, Oracle said Wed. that Atari was “integrating its customer relationship management business processes directly with its supply chain management operations using Oracle applications.” Also, earlier this month, Games Inc. said it signed a deal with Atari to buy the www.Games.com domain name and certain related assets from the publisher for $1.13 million in cash and stock. As part of that deal, Games said it would acquire digital licenses and sublicenses to popular titles including “classic Atari games,” Battleship, Boggle, Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble and Yahtzee. Games plans to relaunch an upgraded version of the Web site this spring, it said.

Consumer intentions on buying TV sets fell in Jan. for the 2nd straight month and stood at the lowest point since last Feb., according to preliminary Conference Board’s monthly data. Of 5,000 households polled, 6.2% said they planned to buy a TV the next 6 months, down from 7.0% in Dec., 7.2% in Nov. and 6.3% in Jan 2003. Nevertheless, the Consumer Confidence Index rose “briskly” in Jan. and was at its highest level since July 2002, the Conference Board said: “Growing optimism about the overall health of the economy continues to bolster consumers’ short-term outlook. But consumers’ assessment of current conditions, which strongly hinges on improvements in the overall labor market, remains both weak and volatile.”

(a) Hang Lung and Bee Lian have preliminary de minimis rates of 0.12% (Hang Lung) and 0.14% (Bee Lian). As a result, liquidation is not suspended for these companies nor are cash deposits or the posting of a bond required for AD purposes.

HD-DVD proponents NEC and Toshiba disavowed any responsibility for the Wall St. Journal report that the Justice Dept. (DoJ) had begun a preliminary investigation into the rival Blu-ray camp (CED Jan 27 p1). A Tokyo-based spokeswoman for Toshiba said her company had no advance knowledge of the report and knew nothing about any DoJ probe. Similar replies were given by NEC’s point man on HD-DVD, Ryoichi (Rick) Hayatsu, and by Hideyuki Irie, dir. of the Office of the Secy. at the DVD Forum. All declined further comment. Meanwhile, an editing error in our report resulted in a quote attributed to a Thomson spokesman being transcribed incorrectly. The Thomson spokesman said his company, like the other Blu-ray members, had had no contact with the Justice Dept. He said Sony “has been the lead company with Blu-ray.” Although Thomson is a member of the Blu-ray Founders group, the spokesman said, the company “is also involved with other next-generation optical disc proposals.”

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has initiated antidumping (AD) duty investigations of certain frozen and canned warmwater shrimp from Brazil, Ecuador, India, Thailand, China, and Vietnam.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) frequently issues notices on antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued and neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period.

If the Justice Dept. (DoJ) has opened a preliminary probe into the activities of the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF)group, as the Wall St. Journal reported Mon., it’s news to Blu-ray companies Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Thomson and Zenith, their representatives told Consumer Electronics Daily.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued the final results of its changed circumstances review of the countervailing (CV) duty order on carbon and certain alloy steel wire rod from Canada. As a result, the ITA is revoking this CV duty order for entries of subject merchandise with a time of entry on or after February 8, 2002.