14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Electronic Arts, one of the biggest in the industry, have announced that, for the fiscal year that has ended on March 31, it has lost no less than 276 million dollars, while the revenue generated during the same period has reached 3.589 billion dollars.
For the previous one-year fiscal period, the company had a much bigger loss, of 677 million dollars, while revenues were just a bit higher.
Electronic Arts has managed a good fourth quarter, with profit reaching 151 million dollars, with company leaders pointing to it as a sign that the massive restructuring process the publisher has undertaken delivering results.
The publisher says that the best performers for the past year have been games like FIFA 11, which have managed to pass 11 million copies sold, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, with sales of more than 7 million units, and Madden NFL 11, a game that went past the 5 million units sales mark.
Recently released Dead Space 2 also performed well, selling 40 percent more games than the original in the series.
Looking to the future, Electronic Arts is betting big on the launch of Battlefield 3, its DICE-created first-person shooter, which is set to arrive during the fall.
Frank Gibeau, who is the leader of the Games division at the video game publisher, has stated, “We know we have a big competitor, but head-to-head with Call of Duty in Q3, we have the superior game engine, a superior development studio, and a flat out superior game.”
He added, “Our goal is to significantly gain share in the huge FPS category and to put the other team on defense.”
Until now, Electronic Arts has shown a number of impressive videos taken from Battlefield 3 while rival Activision Blizzard has not offered any information on the upcoming Call of Duty game.