14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts has just released fresh financial reports and analyzing them was a real pleasure, since we always love surprises. Battlefield Bad Company and UEFA EURO 2008 were EA's best selling games, as we have already reported, but the biggest surprise came after we did the math to see which console brought in most money for the publishers.
Apparently, the sales on the PS3 consoles brought the biggest amount of cash to Electronic Arts, with a reported increase of an incredible 969 percent between April and June. Also, the console proved to be the most profitable platform of them all, bringing in $139 million. The good old PC system comes second with $86 million dropped into EA's bank account, suggesting that everybody who thinks that PC game sales are going down are horribly wrong.
Microsoft's console managed to bring only $81 million to the publishers, while the bestseller Nintendo Wii tied the PSP on $57 million, right behind the last-gen PS2, which also brought Electronic Arts a hefty $79 million. The last position was occupied by the DS handheld, with only $21 million over half the income recorded by sales to mobile phones, which totaled $44 million.
And if we do a bit more math, we can easily see that Sony's consoles combined managed to make about $275 million for Electronic Arts, which is definitely more than analysts had anticipated. Could this mean that PlayStation 3 consoles are finally starting to go up, as the official representatives from Sony are hoping? We don't know and probably the next financial results from EA won't tell us more about that, since the company is planning to focus more on the Wii and DS consoles - this could be the right way in order for the company to record profits this year.
John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts, said, "We are now seeing the early returns of the change agenda we started last year. Innovation and quality are rising, our games are more accessible and fun, and we have more new titles than at any time in our history. From Spore on the PC to Dead Space on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to MySims on the Wii and Nintendo DS to Scrabble on the iPhone and Facebook, this is the best title portfolio in the company's history".