Ben-DutkaLet's face it- the transition between generations is always a costly one, and most game companies suffer through a period of significant losses before things get rolling again. However, if there was such a slump for this era conversion, it was short-lived. The top third-party publisher in the world has just announced its biggest second-quarter take ever.
For the quarter ending September 30, Electronic Arts chalked up total revenues of $784 million, a leap of 16% over 2005's 2nd-quarter total of $675 million. EA cited the launch of several big-name sports franchises contributing to the increase: Madden NFL 07 , NCAA Football 07 , FIFA 07 , NBA Live 07 , and NHL 07 . They also mentioned that NCAA Football 07 hit an all-time high of 2 million copies sold in that one quarter, and perhaps a bit surprisingly, the NHL franchise is having its strongest year ever.
EA also attributed the increase to gains in the Xbox 360 and mobile sectors. EA's Xbox 360 games made up 21% of the company's total revenue ($166 million), and more than offset any losses in current-generation platforms. EA was also quick to mention they're the #1 publisher for the 360 year-to-date in both North America and Europe.
However, while the revenues smashed records, EA's net profits suffered a bit. Last year, they reported final gains of $51 million, while this year it's way down to $22 million.
But EA expects to do even better in the upcoming quarter. They expect revenue to be somewhere between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion, with their predictions for the fiscal year ending March 31 getting ramped up to a $2.95 billion to $3.13 billion range. The company initially predicted a range of $2.8 billion to $3 billion.
All in all, things are looking rosy for EA, and for many other game publishers as well.
