Tag Archives: acti blizz q1 financials 2009

Bobby Kotick added his voice to the chorus of mega-bosses saying there isn’t going to be a new hardware generation for years to come yesterday, speaking in Activision Blizzard’s Q1 earnings call.

“As far as the consoles themselves… I think that there’s a lot of runway for all of these devices,” he said.

“I think that we’ve got a long way to go before you get to price points that truly take advantage of all of this hardware,” Kotick added.

“I think from a geography standpoint, we still have a long way to go before these products have really penetrated every single geography, so we don’t really anticipate there are going to be material changes to the console landscape any time soon.”

Got it? No new consoles. Big Bobby said so.

Thanks, Edge.

Bobby Kotick said in the Activision Blizzard Q1 earnings call last night that Guitar Hero sales have no passed $2 billion.

The franchise is only the third to do so, the other two being Madden and Mario.

The company also said that 34 million tracks have now been downloaded for Guitar Hero products.

Get all the rest of the news from the call here.

You guys are hilarious. There’s you with you “relaxing” and your “sleep”. You’re only alive once, you know. How can you expect to know everything that happens in the world of Activision Blizzard videogames news on the internet if you don’t constantly look at a computer screen while you’re awake?

You could just look at the list below, obviously:

• Activision Blizzard posts $981 million revenue for Q1
• Acti Blizz Q1 earnings call – the full transcript
• Acti Blizz – We own 55% of all music games in US and Europe
• New Hawk to give “thrill of skateboarding like never before”, E3 reveal planned
• WoW may be taken offline for Chinese transition, says Morhaime
• StarCraft II “external beta testing” this “summer”
• Acti Blizz: 34 million Guitar Hero tracks downloaded
• Acti Blizz adds “Call of Duty” to Modern Warfare 2, original ships 13 million
• DJ Hero can have added guitar for play
• Acti Blizz – Console sales will rise 53 million units this year
• Guitar Hero hits $2 billion in sales

Activision Blizzard had plenty to talk about in its first quarter earnings call last night. You may well have been asleep. Luckily, some tireless soul from Seeking Alpha type up the entire thing, as you can see here.

First one to find the quote about Blur doing for racing games what Call of Duty did for shooters is the winner.

Activision boss Mike Griffith said in the Acti Blizz Q1 earnings call last night that Guitar Hero is now responsible for more than half of all rhythm action sales in the US and Europe.

“This quarter, we further extended our advantage for the Guitar Hero franchise,” he said. “We ended the quarter with a 55% share of all rhythm and music based games in North America and Europe, up 10 full points from the prior year, as we took share from Rock Band in both North America and Europe.”

Griffith wasn’t done with the Rock Band-bashing.

“In Europe, where expansion of the franchise remains a strategic priority, quarterly sell-through was up over 80 percent year over year, with Guitar Hero outselling Rock Band by 10:1,” he added.

“Our competitive position should further improve next month when we launch Guitar Hero Metallica in Europe.”

You go, girl. Get the rest of the news from the call here.

Activision CEO Mike Griffith said in Acti Blizz’s Q1 earnings call yesterday that the new Tony Hawk game is to add a completely new dimension to the series. That’ll be a plastic skateboard, then.

“We are also planning to release our reinvention of Tony Hawk [later this year], with a very innovative and interactive game that lets consumers experience the thrill of skateboarding like never before,” said the boss.

“Our goal from the start was to reinvent this franchise back to its roots where we engaged a broad, mass market consumer, and we feel good about what this game can do. We will also unveil specifics at E3.”

Roll on June. You can never have enough bits of plastic in your living room.

Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime has warned that the Chinese version of World of Warcraft may be taken offline while the company swaps operators in the country.

“Some downtime may be necessary for a limited time,” said the exec, speaking in Activision Blizzard’s Q1 earnings call.

Morhaime said a website‘s been set up to keep players informed of what’s going to happen and when.

Blizzard is currently in the process of switching the MMO over to NetEase from The9 in China.

The amount of people playing the game in China appears to be a bit of a mystery, but “a lot” is a safe bet.

Globally, the game passed the 11 million subs mark in October 2008.

Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime just confirmed that StarCraft II’s “external beta testing” will take place this “summer”.

There was no specific date for the test, and Morhaime said updates would be forthcoming.

Opt-ins were recently opened for the beta.

There’s still no confirmed date for the game itself.

Morhaime was speaking in Activision Blizzard’s first quarter earnings call.

Uh oh. Activision Blizzard just called Inifity Ward’s upcoming super-sequel “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ in its Q1 earnings call. Thought the Call of Duty had been dropped?

The company said that the game’s teaser trailer had been viewed 1.3 million in its first 24 hours of release.

The original game has now shipped 13 million units, said the firm.

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ ships in November.

You’ll be able to plug a guitar into DJ Hero and play along with the game’s turntable, Activision Blizzard just confirmed in its Q1 earnings call.

The company said that 50 percent of likely buyers for the game are not currently Guitar Hero owners.

The game itself is being put together in the UK, and will release at the end of this year.

Activision Blizzard has just said that it expects console sales in the US and Europe to rise 53 million units this year, a prediction unchanged from its last figures release.

At the end of 2008, the firm said, 170 million consoles were installed in the two major Western markets, up 63 percent year-on-year.

Software will see “low- to mid-single digit growth” this year, said the firm.

The news comes from the company’s Q1 earnings call, which is ongoing.

Activision Blizzard announced revenues of $981 million for the three months ending March today.

Acti Blizz has posted better than expect results for the quarter ending March, showing $981 million revenue for the period.

Prior outlook was $860 million. EPS was $0.14, up from outlook of $0.08.

Operating income was $179 million for the quarter.

“Our better-than-expected first quarter results were driven by strong global consumer response to the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero franchises and Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, despite challenging economic times,” said boss Bobby Kotick.

“For the quarter, we were the #1 third-party console and handheld publisher in North America and the #1 third-party publisher for the Nintendo Wii platform worldwide, according to The NPD Group, Charttrack and Gfk.”

The press release is here.