A new financial statement from Take-Two states that their fiscal year 2009 results will be lower than expected mostly due to its Major League Baseball titles.

Take-Two anticipates that its results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 will be below its prior guidance due to several factors, the largest being the performance of its Major League Baseball titles in the fourth quarter, which reduced earnings by approximately $0.09 per share, along with an impairment of capitalized software based on sales estimates for its MLB titles in fiscal 2010, representing approximately $0.05 per share. The Company also incurred inventory write downs in its distribution business primarily related to prior generation software, representing approximately $0.07 per share, and realized lower than expected initial performance of several of its key holiday releases.

They were obviously expecting to sell a lot of MLB and didn’t with an earning drop of $0.09 per share.

Take-Two noted that it has a strong pipeline of titles that remain on plan for launch in 2010, including BioShock 2, Mafia II, Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption. BioShock 2 is on target for a global release on February 9, 2010, and Red Dead Redemption is planned for April 27, 2010. Mafia II is scheduled to follow during the first half of calendar 2010, and Max Payne 3 is now planned for release during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010.

Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two, stated, "Our anticipated results for the balance of fiscal 2009 primarily reflect the challenges related to our Major League Baseball business, inventory write downs in our distribution business, and retail conditions that have proven to be more difficult than the assumptions built into our prior outlook. These factors were partially offset by the performance of our catalog business and a number of our holiday titles, as shown by the successful launch of Borderlands and the leading ratings and market share of NBA 2K10. Looking ahead, we remain committed to our goal of operating profitably on a non-GAAP basis; however, we do not currently expect to achieve that goal in fiscal 2010. We have an outstanding product portfolio, exceptional creative talent and a solid balance sheet, and are confident that these strengths will provide a sound foundation for improved performance."