The Xbox 360 version of Take-Two Interactive’s Grand Theft Auto IV became the top-rented videogame in the U.S. its first week available, according to Rentrak’s preliminary Home Video Essentials data for the week ended Sunday. The PS3 version was No. 2. Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for 360 -- the previous week’s No. 1 game -- slid to No. 4 its seventh week out. Also topping it was Nintendo’s Mario Kart Wii, up 12 its second week. The only other new title in the top 10 was Sega’s Iron Man at No. 8… Three units of the 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV are being sold in the U.S. for every two units of the PS3 SKU, Microsoft’s retailers report, the company said. Also in the game’s first week available, Microsoft said: More than 2.3 million people played the game on Xbox Live, it’s now the online game service’s most-played game, the service reached one million concurrent users over the weekend, players unlocked more than 12 million achievements worth over 100 million gamerscore points in the game and the title set a record for time played, as the average gamer spent more than four hours playing it online the first week.
The International Trade Administration has issued its final results of the antidumping duty administrative review of honey from Argentina for the period of December 1, 2005 through November 30, 2006.
ICANN approved changes to .pro manager RegistryPro’s contract aimed at increasing interest in the slow-selling top-level domain. The name, restricted to doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers, has had limited success, said preliminary minutes of an April 30 special board meeting posted this week. The registry proposed: (1) Letting five more professions use .pro domains, and others licensed by governmental boards. (2) Making second-level registrations, lie “med.pro,” available to all registrants. (3) Adding terms of use to the registry agreement to improve certification of registrants. (4) Reconfiguring the RegistryPro advisory board.
A merger between T-Mobile’s German owner Deutsche Telekom and Sprint is unlikely to emerge due to “uncertainty over the public safety spectrum rebanding and the possibility that Sprint’s purchase price will continue to decline,” said Stifel Nicolaus. It was responding to a Wall Street Journal report on a possible DT-Sprint merger. Stifel said it believed the government review of the purchase would be complex and close, though its preliminary assessment was that “antitrust and regulatory authorities are more likely than not to approve it.” For a merger, both companies need to show government and shareholders that it would give them the spectrum needed for Long Term Evolution deployment, and the two would cite a need to increase spectrum holdings following the 700 MHz auctions, said the report. Stifel said approval would be easier under a Republican administration. A deal would be “significantly beneficial” to T-Mobile by “reducing pricing volatility in the wireless market,” said Bernstein Research. It said Sprint has 19 percent of the U.S. wireless market, while T-Mobile has 12 percent, so together they would exceed AT&T’s 27 percent. The report said a deal would be good for Verizon, AT&T and Sprint because competitive intensity, and price risk, would shrink. The report noted bad news for Sprint -- that it will must quit its remaining 800 MHz spectrum by June 26 under a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It means Sprint must replace millions of iDEN handsets now active in the affected spectrum, at potential cost of billions. The report characterizes the result as disastrous, predicting that the FCC will grant some kind of relief. T-Mobile and Sprint declined to comment. Sprint stock rose 86 cents, or 10.9 percent, to $8.75, in the U.S., while DT declined 1.5 percent to $18 in Frankfurt.
The International Trade Administration has made a preliminary affirmative antidumping duty determination that polyethylene terephthalate film, sheet and strip (PET film) from China is being, or is likely to be, sold in the U.S. at less than fair value.
The International Trade Administration has made preliminary affirmative antidumping duty determinations that polyethylene terephthalate film, sheet and strip (PET film) from Brazil and the United Arab Emirates is being, or is likely to be, sold in the U.S. at less than fair value.
New Games: About 609,000 units of Take-Two Interactive game Grand Theft Auto IV were sold in the U.K. Tuesday, its first day available, Chart-Track data show. About 335,000 units were sold for Xbox 360 and about 274,000 for PS3, Chart-Track Director Dorian Bloch said Thursday. The 360 version’s sales beat day-one sales of about 266,000 units of Microsoft 360 game Halo 3 in September, Bloch said. The PS3 SKU of the new Grand Theft Auto easily beat Sony’s PS3 title Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, which sold about 80,000 units its first day, in March, Bloch said. U.S. sales data for Grand Theft Auto IV haven’t been released. The latest group to slam Grand Theft Auto IV is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, “disappointed” that Take-Two’s Rockstar Games studio’s product includes “a game module where players can drive drunk.” Noting that each year “nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes and another half a million are injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes,” MADD said drunk driving “is not a game and it is not a joke.” It urged the Entertainment Software Rating Board to rerate the game from Mature to Adults Only, and that Take-Two “consider a stop in distribution -- if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.” The ESRB declined to comment. Rockstar Games has “a great deal of respect for MADD’s mission,” but “the mature audience for Grand Theft Auto IV is more than sophisticated enough to understand the game’s content,” it said. One “can’t judge” the game by “a small aspect” of it, much as “you can’t judge an entire film or television program by a single scene,” it said… The Xbox 360 version of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, in its sixth week available, was again the top-rented videogame in the U.S., according to Rentrak preliminary Home Video Essentials data for the week ended April 27. The 360 version of Army of Two from Electronic Arts was again No. 2, in its eighth week. No new releases made the top 10… Gameloft signed a license with Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group allowing Gameloft to develop and publish a mobile game based on coming movie The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, in theaters Aug. 1. The game launches this summer, Gameloft said without giving a release date. The deal marks Gameloft’s fourth collaboration with Universal, the game maker said.
Time Warner will spin off its 84 percent stake in Time Warner Cable, it said. Investors have expected the move since Jeff Bewkes replaced Richard Parsons as CEO in January (CD Feb 7 p8). “We've decided that a complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interest of both companies’ shareholders,” Bewkes said in a news release early Wednesday. The two companies hope soon to finalize an agreement on the transaction’s form. Much talk focuses on the companies’ debt. Time Warner Cable executives skirted questions about leverage and the company’s ability to borrow during a Wednesday teleconference with analysts.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted its report to Congress on the Automated Commercial Environment for the first quarter of fiscal year 2008 (October 1, 2007 - December 31, 2007). The report provides an update on ACE accomplishments, challenges, fiscal status, and upcoming program milestones.
The International Trade Administration has initiated antidumping duty investigations to determine whether imports of certain circular welded carbon quality steel line pipe from China and Korea are being, or are likely to be, sold in the U.S. at less than fair value, and a countervailing duty investigation to determine whether manufacturers, producers, or exporters of subject merchandise in China receive countervailable subsidies.