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Facebook Price Target Hiked As Shipments Of Oculus Rift Take Flight

As its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset began landing in the hands of buyers Monday, Facebook ( FB ) received upbeat reports from two analysts. Evercore ISI analyst Ken Sena hiked his price target on Facebook stock to 150 from 140, saying the company is in a strong position to dominate the messaging market with its WhatsApp and Messenger applications while attracting more developers. Facebook stock rose a in the stock market today , to 113.69. Facebook is trading comfortably above its 50-day moving average as it works on a new base with a 117.69 buy point. “With a combined 1.8 billion messaging users between WhatsApp and Messenger alone, Facebook offers developers an audience essentially as large as the entirety of the iOS and Android user base, ex-China,” he wrote. Sena said the ease of use of those apps positions Facebook’s messaging ecosystem “to showcase itself as possibly the next leading developer ecosystem.” It also provides Facebook with a revenue opportunity which Sena estimates at $4 billion. Steve Weinstein, an analyst at ITG Investment Research, wrote in a separate research report that he sees revenue growth at Facebook accelerating above Wall Street’s consensus estimates, which could could give the stock a charge. Based on an analysis of data through February, Weinstein estimates Facebook’s first-quarter revenue in the U.S. and Europe is accelerating above the analyst estimates. He projects Q1 revenue will come in at $5.45 billion, up 54% year over year and above the $5.25 billion consensus view reported by Thomson Reuters. The upbeat reports come as Facebook began shipping its virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift, on Monday. Research firm CCS Insight estimates the overall virtual reality device market, including the related augmented reality field, will exceed $4 billion in annual sales within three years.

GameStop Turns To Mobile Devices, Collectibles As Game Sales Slip

At least three Wall Street analysts cut their price targets on GameStop ( GME ) stock on Monday, following the video game retailer’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and guidance. Late Thursday, GameStop delivered mixed Q4 results and current-year guidance. The Grapevine, Texas-based company also acknowledged for the first time that physical video game sales are in permanent decline. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson said it took several years for GameStop to admit what most industry observers already knew — that digital game downloads were cannibalizing physical game software sales. GameStop executives said diversification is now the company’s main strategy. GameStop is increasing its specialty stores that sell AT&T ( T ) and Apple ( AAPL ) products as well as outlets that sell pop-culture collectibles based on “Star Wars,” Marvel superheroes, “Game of Thrones” and other creative properties. Wilson reiterated his sector-weight rating on GameStop stock. “We remain skeptical on the collectibles business and AT&T reseller stores,” Wilson said in a research report Thursday. “These can all be fine businesses, even with better margins than the core. However, they just cannot be big enough to replace games and justify GameStop’s current market capitalization, in our view. We continue to expect it to spin its tires diversifying away from games and to underestimate the pace of negative change in the game business.” Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey on Monday reiterated his sell rating on GameStop stock and lowered his price target to 26.33 from 27.36. GameStop was down a fraction, near 30, in afternoon trading on the stock market today . GameStop Knocked As A ‘Waffle Maker Retailer’ Hickey knocked the company’s efforts to to grow sales through mobile devices and pop-culture collectables. “We remain largely unimpressed by the company’s transformation to a mobile distributor/T-shirt, bento box, waffle maker retailer,” Hickey said in a report. GameStop has an “outmoded” business model built around sales of game hardware and software using traditional retail stores, he said. Hickey says console software sales will turn completely digital within the next five years. For its fiscal fourth quarter ended Jan. 30, GameStop earned $2.40 a share, excluding items, on sales of $3.53 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected $2.25 a share on sales of $3.56 billion. On a year-over-year basis, GameStop EPS ex items rose 12%, but sales ticked up just 1%. Game hardware and software accounted for nearly 87% of sales in fiscal Q4. Sales of game products dropped 3.1% to $3.05 billion in Q4. Mobile and consumer electronics sales rose 16.9% to $209 million, accounting for 5.9% of Q4 revenue. Top sellers included the Apple iPhone 6S, the Apple Watch and Beats headphones. GameStop added 552 new technology brand stores last year and ended the period with 1,036 stores, including the Simply Mac and Spring Mobile chains. Sales of collectibles and other products rose 77% to $266 million, making up 7.6% of revenue. It ended the fiscal year with 35 collectibles stores worldwide, including ThinkGeek outlets. Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson maintained his overweight rating on GameStop stock, but cut his price target to 41 from 42. He noted that the company’s guidance for Q1 and fiscal 2016 was below consensus estimates. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter reiterated his outperform rating on GameStop stock, but cut his price target to 36 from 38. He took a more cautious stance as the company increases its mobile phone retail business. “GameStop is a quality retailer, has a shareholder-friendly capital allocation strategy, and has prudently managed the transition from a games-only retailer to a multi-channel retailer of games, mobile hardware and services and collectibles,” he said in a research report Monday. “We expect GameStop’s core business to continue to contract, and expect its mobile and loot businesses to continue to grow.”

Facebook’s Oculus Rift: Reviews Mixed, As Content Still Lags

What’s clear from the swath of reviews of the Facebook ( FB )-owned Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset is that the technology has most certainly arrived, but for the most part, the content still needs to follow. From the reviews and my own experience with the Rift, it’s hard to argue that — at the very least — new types of video games are right around the corner. The Rift is a solid piece of technology that works reasonably well under most circumstances, and video game reviewers  mostly agree . Hardware-wise, the main gripe among the reviews was that the Rift didn’t ship with motion sensitive controllers that Oculus demonstrated this month at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The Rift shipped with a Microsoft ( MSFT ) Xbox One controller. Such controllers would allow anyone donning the headset to make gestures and manipulate VR content in a more life-like fashion. The motion-sensitive controllers are coming later this year, Facebook says. But as IBD reported from GDC on March 17, the hardware is here (or within a whisker), but the content has yet to come. It’s not clear whether the software shipped with the VR headset will match the impressive hardware. Of the titles I tried at GDC, none were too compelling, though I sampled a mere seven games. Reviewers at the  New York Times , the  Wall Street Journal  Digits blog (but not the newspaper itself ), and gaming website IGN  (among others) agree with my assessment. The Rift debuted with 30 titles, ranging from $10 to $60. The majority of the reviews that IBD looked at for this post were in gaming publications, and reviewers acknowledged little out there yet in the way of worthwhile non-gaming VR content, such as VR movies that video-streaming companies such as  Netflix ( NFLX ) are exploring. The Rift headset’s $600 cost was cited in many reviews as a deterrent to all but the most dedicated of gamers — especially considering the headset requires a PC with advanced graphics hardware that runs about $1,000. And it doesn’t yet work with Apple’s OS X. Many reviews of this first-generation Rift, such as the review by the New York Times, said reviewers eagerly await better content and future generations of the device. And Facebook will soon have company. HTC plans to launch its VR headset, Vive, in April. It will retail for about $800 and feature hardware similar to that of Facebook’s Rift. Sony ( SNE ) also has a VR offering coming for its PlayStation console, likely to hit stores in Q3 or Q4.