(FORTUNE Magazine) – I'll admit it: I'm getting a little too old to game. But I'm still young enough to know a killer product when I see one. Like the new videogame Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Now, if you're over 35 or you don't have teenaged kids, you may not know anything about this stuff. If that's the case, I'll give it to you straight. The videogame business is the hottest, fastest-growing, and most innovative part of the entertainment industry. It has also become a huge business. Sales of game hardware, software, and accessories should total around $10.3 billion this year, according to research company NPD Group, compared with an estimated $9 billion for movie box office receipts.

Oh, and one more thing about games. They are definitely contributing to the decline of Western civilization. Think I'm kidding? Spend some time in Vice City (I tried it in the Downtown Manhattan loft of Take-Two Interactive software, the game's maker), and you'll see what I mean. You steal a sports car, shoot a cop, punch out a girl in a bikini. The usual. On the other hand, Vice City is far and away the most intricate, cool, fun, and seductive fantasy world you've ever visited. And you don't actually have to do anything too violent: You can just cruise around the city, clubbing and shopping, or hop into a speedboat. I loved driving while listening to the 1980s music on any one of nine radio stations (Romeo Void doing "Never Say Never").

The game also features the "voice talents" of Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Lee Majors, and Dennis Hopper. Porn star Jenna Jameson (oh, her) and former football player Lawrence Taylor (LT!) are also in the mix. Whatever. Yes, Vice City is way violent (the game is rated Mature for "blood and gore, violence, strong language, strong sexual content"), but it is also way cooler than the world in which we live. I didn't want to leave.

All of which means, of course, that Vice City is selling like crack cocaine back in the day. After only a week Take-Two CEO Kelly Sumner described sales as "unbelievable" while declining to provide exact figures. He does brag that Vice's opening smashed previous records for a videogame release (with first-day sales of "closer to one million units than half a million units," according to one industry source). Not bad, and guess what: The game retails for $50 a pop! How big could Vice City be? Well, its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto 3, sold about seven million units, for gross sales of some $350 million--more than most Hollywood blockbusters.

A guy named Ryan Brant founded Take-Two nine years ago, when he was fresh out of Wharton. (Ryan, now 30 and the company chairman, is the son of polo player Peter Brant--his stepmom is model Stephanie Seymour.) Take-Two meandered along for a few years, until in 1998 it bought BMG's game business, which came with the Grand Theft Auto title. While other game companies like Electronic Arts and Activision are more agnostic, meaning they make titles for Nintendo's GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox as well as Sony's PlayStation platform, Take-Two decided early on to cast its lot primarily with Sony. "That makes perfect sense now [that PlayStation has a 70% market share], but back then it was a big risk," says Sumner. About as risky as ignoring the gaming business today.

Is A&P past its expiration date?

Call it the (not so) Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. Since peaking at more than $50 some 12 years ago, the stock of the venerable grocery store chain has traded down, down, down. But this year the stock (ticker: GAP) has fallen off the shelf, plunging from the high 20s to just under $6. Why the markdown? Well, competition in this mini-margin biz has never been tougher, especially now that Wal-Mart has entered the fray.

A&P--which is mostly in the Northeast and Canada (it also operates under the Waldbaum's and Food Emporium names)--is today only the 14th-largest grocer, with roughly 700 stores. Its bottom line is getting squeezed as it spends on promos to defend its market share. Meanwhile, S&P cut A&P's debt rating to junk, and company COO Elizabeth Culligan just left to "pursue other opportunities." (Yes, the company really said that!) So how's A&P going to address this super-supermarket slump? By splitting up its Canadian and U.S. operations. Right. Somehow you get the feeling it'll need to do more than that to head off Wal-Mart.

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