Look, I'm not saying buying gaming stocks right now is like picking up Bitcoin in 2020, but... you may want to at least pay attention.

While the S&P 500's stuck around a measly 3% gain, gaming stocks are speedrunning 2025 like they've got all the cheat codes. The Global X Video Games & Esports ETF is up 12% YTD.

And speaking of a nostalgic game that'll make me feel ancient, Nintendo (which is up 23% YTD) is about to drop the Switch 2 later this year. The OG Switch is turning 8 this March (yeah, that made me feel old too) and demand for its successor is so high that Nintendo's basically admitting they're gonna pull an iPhone 15 and run out of stock immediately.

Nintendo's president, Shuntaro Furukawa, went full YOLO mode, saying they're "taking risks and proceeding with production" to meet demand. And it gets better: Remember Grand Theft Auto 5?  (I know you do). Well, Take-Two Interactive who is up 16% YTD is finally, FINALLY, dropping GTA 6 this fall. 

For perspective, the last GTA came out when "Blurred Lines" was topping the charts and people thought Tesla was just a weird car company about to go bankrupt. Now it's only the third best-selling game ever, with 210 million copies sold… sitting behind Minecraft and Tetris (yeah, freaking Tetris, with 520 million copies... apparently stacking blocks never gets old).

The hype around GTA 6 is more inflated than Nvidia stock valuations (well maybe not quite, but it’s close). We're talking about a rumored $2 billion budget. Analysts are predicting it'll hit $3.2 billion in sales in its first year alone. That's double what 2024's biggest movie made. EA's so scared, they're literally planning their release schedule around it.

On the other hand, traditional media companies are getting absolutely wrecked. Warner Bros. Discovery (-5%), Disney (-2%), and Paramount (+1%) are performing about as well as the Chiefs offensive line did in the Super Bowl. Turns out, people would rather virtually rob banks in Los Santos than watch another superhero movie.

JPMorgan's is predicting Nintendo will sell 272 million software units by fiscal year 2029, probably because the Switch 2 will be backward compatible. And NDR analysts are calling GTA 6 the "800-pound gorilla" of the gaming industry, which feels like an insult to gorillas, honestly. So again, I’m not saying you should sell your house and put the proceeds in Nintendo stock and Take-Two Interactive Software (the company behind GTA), but they've both got great catalysts to see a nice pop here soon.

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Stocks.News has positions in Warner Bros., Take-Two, EA, Paramount, and Disney mentioned in article.