14 DAY TRIAL // Activision Blizzard has announced the financial results for the quarter that ended on June 30 and, despite the economic downturn and the overall slump in videogame-related sales, the publisher still managed to sell videogames worth 1.04 billion dollars, which is more than it originally estimated for the period. Operating income was 218 million dollars and net income was 195 million, leading to a figure of 15 cents per share earnings.
The strong performance, in a three-month period that saw rival Electronic Arts lose money, was driven by titles like Prototype, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Bobby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, said that the older games in the Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty franchises, were still selling very well. The overall market share of games published by the company has increased to 12.7% across all platforms.
Kotick was also keen on pointing out how strong the line up of upcoming titles from Activision was, saying that “This fall, we will release our strongest video game slate based on some of the industry's most successful franchises, including Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Guitar Hero 5, DJ Hero, Band Hero, Tony Hawk: RIDE and Bakugan Battle Brawlers. We are in a unique industry position to be able to invest in people, products and resources for the long term without compromising our short-term commitments of earnings growth and margin expansion.”
Still, all is not well in the Activision Blizzard land. Singularity, a new shooter with an X-Files vibe, has been pushed to 2010 because it could have been overlooked in the wake of the launch of Modern Warfare 2, and Starcraft II has also been confirmed as arriving next year, mainly due to the makeover given to Battle.net. The company is expecting to earn 4.05 billion dollars in 2009, 250 million lower than it initially projected.