Tag Archives: activision blizzard full year financials 09

Acti Blizz has reported that over 34 million songs have been downloaded for the Guitar Hero franchise, and over 14 million bits of user-created content have been made through Guitar Hero: World Tour.

The company, speaking in its Q1 earnings call today, said that because of the popularity of music games, the genre is now an integral part of the company’s long term expansion plans.

Because of the demand, DJ Hero is being released to give gamers wanting a variety in music something else to play in their living rooms.

During the conference call, we think it was mentioned that more people buy music through the game than any other form of media. We’ll check the transcript when it is released to make sure, so don’t quote us just yet.

One thing that is a positive – more Guitar Hero and other rhythm-based games are in Acti Blizz’s future with a bomb.

ActiBlizz has announced that Guitar Hero World Tour was the number one best-selling third-party title in the U.S. across all platforms in dollars.

Same in Europe, and thanks to Wii, Guitar Hero World Tour was the number one best-selling third-party title in dollars for the Nintendo system and the only third-party game to rank as a top-five best seller for the platform.

European sales for the Guitar Hero franchise grew 84 percent y-o-y.

While sales for the music category were down overall worldwide, ActivBlizz still held a 55 percent share in all rhythm games sales and outperformed Rock Band in sales by 10 to 1 with an install base for the franchise reaching 15 million worldwide.

The franchise has surpassed $2 billion in sales, and after the Mario and Madden franchises it’s the third to have accomplished such a distinction.

Stern Agee’s Arvind Bhatia has predicted that WoW subs amounted to earnings per share of about 30 cents out of a total 60 cents, or around $400 million total, in Activision Blizzard’s fiscal year ended December.

The MMO currently has 11.5 million subscribers, the publisher has said.

Bhatia lowered his fiscal 2009 Activision estimates from $5.2 billion to $4.9 billion in revenues yesterday, and dropped earnings per share estimates from 65 cents to 60 cents.

More on Edge.