In the flood of analyst reports that always follows every NPD data period, we picked up some interesting commentary from Deutsche Bank's Jeetil Patel who noted that Rock Band and the early shipment of NCAA March Madness have "masked market share declines at Electronic Arts."

"[Core] market share was down for Electronic Arts on a standalone basis in December, with total sales of $338mn, representing 14.3% market share in Dec. Including Rock Band (listed separately under MTV Games as publisher) sales of $118mn, Electronic Arts market share boosted to 19.2% for Dec, only slightly better than last year," explained Patel. "In addition, market share would have further eroded as NCAA March Madness 2008 shipped early and added $7.5mn to Dec sales, rather than the month Jan, when last year's NCAA March Madness 2007 was shipped to retailers."

"...we think investors are clearly giving EA far too much credit to its scale and product quality when its industry leadership position may be under attack. "

Patel also noted that EA Sports titles seem to be in decline. Madden 08 sold 1.86 million units compared to 1.96 million last year (a five percent drop), while NCAA Football 2008 sold 352K units, down 17 percent compared to the 423K sold in December 2006. "Even more troubling," Patel said, are the average selling price (ASP) declines. From Madden 07 to Madden 08 the ASP dropped nine percent to $40.34, and from NCAA 07 to NCAA 08 the ASP dropped 12 percent to $36.39.

"We think the relative underperformance of Electronic Arts' two well-established titles represent a major concern for two reasons," Patel said. "First, if the company's proven and well known franchises (with exclusivity on its side) are struggling to grow YoY, it does beg the question whether the company's newer titles will be successful during a very competitive retail environment (with blockbuster titles from the likes of Activision, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Sony and of course Nintendo). Second, should these weak sell-through trends continue, we think that EA may look to reduce software pricing on these titles to stimulate sales volumes."

"With market share losses and several of the company's dominant franchises also shrinking; we think investors are clearly giving EA far too much credit to its scale and product quality when its industry leadership position may be under attack. Hence, we maintain our SELL [rating]."