GameStop profits nearly triple

It's becoming difficult to remember the last time that GameStop wasn't besting its year-over-year quarterly earnings. The largest specialty game retailer in the world announced today that it had continued its trend of record-setting financials into its second fiscal quarter, seeing revenues rise sharply and profits nearly triple.

For the period ended August 2, GameStop raked in $1.8 billion in sales, a 35 percent year-over-year increase. If that number sounds familiar, that's because GameStop also pulled in $1.8 billion during its first fiscal quarter. GameStop's net profit soared an astounding 161 percent from the same period a year ago, rising from $21.8 million in Q2 2007 to $57.2 million for the current reporting period.

Noting that current-generation software sales rose 43 percent for the quarter, the specialty retailer laid out its top-five best-sellers. Take-Two and Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV was on store shelves for only five days before GameStop's Q1 ended, yet it still managed to land the top slot for the retailer's reporting period. Despite falling out of NPD's top 10 list by June, the highly acclaimed action adventure still managed to secure the top slot of GameStop's charts in Q2. Following GTAIV in descending order were Konami's PlayStation 3-exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4, EA's NCAA Football 09, Nintendo's Wii Fit, and EA's Battlefield: Bad Company.

Thanks to its better-than-expected results, GameStop also revised its full-year earnings guidance upward. The specialty retailer now projects total year-end sales to increase 23 to 25 percent. Earnings-per-share projections are now anticipated to grow by 36 to 39 percent from a year prior to between $2.45 and $2.50.