14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts has announced a loss for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, saying that it has a budget gap of 234 million dollars, which is significantly more than the 95 million loss reported for the same period of last year.
Overall sales have also dipped, with the publisher only selling videogames worth 644 million dollars, compared to 804 million in 2008. Still, John Riccitiello, the Chief Executive Officer of Electronic Arts, is saying that the company has done better than expected and that the “performance” can be attributed to “good execution.”
The biggest winners for the publisher were The Sims 3, which arrived in June, EA Sports Active and Fight Night Round 4 from EA Sports. Riccitiello believes that the first two games are bestsellers and that they will continue to bring in important revenue to the company. EA Sports Active has proved to be a hit with fitness-oriented gamers, most of them preferring it to Wii Fit from Nintendo.
The game has sold 1.8 million units and EA Sports is already planning to put out an update for the title. The game, alongside Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Grand Slam Tennis and Rock Band 2, allowed Electronic Arts to get a 21% share of Wii-based gaming in North America and 13% in Europe.
Meanwhile, The Sims 3 has sold 3.7 million copies since launch, being the best seller for the period in North America and in Europe combined. The series seems to be as healthy as ever and Electronic Arts has already said that a World Adventures expansion, getting the game characters to new, exotic location, will be released in November, just in time for Christmas.
Electronic Arts is expecting to draw in total revenue of 3.7 to 3.85 billion dollars during this fiscal year and the company is also expecting to make a profit.