Finally Some Good Economic News

Netflix smoked past their Q4 projections, according the the WSJ. From the piece:

Fourth-quarter profit rose 45% as the DVD-rental company enjoyed a subscriber boost and spent less on acquiring new customers.

The company, which lets members rent DVDs via the mail or online, posted net income of $22.7 million, or 38 cents a share, up from $15.7 million, or 23 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue increased 19% to $359.6 million.

In October, the company lowered its outlook, forecasting earnings of 30 cents to 38 cents a share on revenue of $351 million to $357 million.

Subscriber-acquisition costs, a closely watched measure for Netflix investors, fell 23% to $26.67 per gross subscriber addition. Meanwhile the churn rate, or the rate of customer cancellations, rose to 4.2% from 4.1% a year earlier.

Netflix ended the quarter with about 9.39 million total subscribers, exceeding the company's estimate from October for 8.85 million to 9.15 million subscribers. Net new subscribers in the fourth quarter increased by 718,000, compared with a 451,000 increase a year earlier.
Looking ahead, the company expects to end the first quarter with 10.1 million to 10.3 million subscribers. Netflix expects first-quarter earnings of 25 cents to 33 cents a share on revenue of $387 million to $393 million.

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GameFly: Why Buy When You Can Rent?

I enjoy gaming, but my preferences tend toward the strategy side of the industry, not twitch games. The dynamics of my sort of game are that you really need to play a long time to truly master one.

Not so the world of shooters and such, where the kids and adults born with that innate ability to annihilate aliens can whip through a game fairly rapidly.

And games aren’t cheap. $60 for a software title isn’t at all rare, so it is only natural that people have sought ways to reduce the costs of their twitch addiction.

Enter GameFly, a video game version of NetFlix that lets you rent a game for a day or a week or a month or a year for $6.95 ofr one game and $9.95 for two. Those of you who are Netflix users may be surprised by this relatively low set of pricepoints, but it’s natural that people will be expected to keep a game for longer than a flick, so the postage costs are far more reasonable in the GameFly model.

The service isn’t about PC games, rather it is focused on the console side of the business, and offers titles for most of the major platforms out there. The seven of you still using Dreamcast are SOL.

But if you are using any of the following, GameFly’s got U covered:

· PSP
· PS2
· PS3
· Xbox
· Xbox 360
· Wii
· GameCube
· Nintendo DS
· Gameboy Advance

In fact, I suspect that GameFly has a far better selection of titles for older platforms than any retailer is currently purveying.

Importantly, the site offers both professional and UGC reviews to read before you rent so you don’t waste your time on something that ain’t no good. If you think about it, having all of this info in one place also helps them broaden their appeal beyond the 500,000 or so super hard core gamers that know read, respond to, watch, and rant about every title everywhere.

GameFly also offers a FaceBook community that lets people share ideas and reviews within that environment, which is a good innovation for the service.

I like the site, both as a venue to advertise to a younger male audience as well as as a Christmas gift for the twitch gamer in your life. Surf on over and check it out.

Thanks for reading, and don;t forget to write.