Tag Archives: activision fy 2008 financials

Acitvision’s shares are up 8.3 percent so far today after the company issued megaton financials for fiscal 2008.

The stock is currently trading at $29.99, a breakthrough after the announcement of Activision’s Blizzard merger in December, since which the shares have been stuck in the $27-28 range.

The deal values the shares at $27.50.

Speaking in an investor call after the announcement of record financials last night, Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith said that we’re not going to see more racing from Bizarre until sometime in the publisher’s fiscal 2010, which ends March 31 2011.

“Bizarre is deep in development on two multi-platform titles and we are looking forward to the release of our first new racing IP in fiscal 2010, which already looks very strong,” he said.

Read the rest of our complete coverage of Activision’s full-year figures here.

Thanks to DarkZero.

And here it is. We think we got pretty much everything, but don’t take our word for it. Listen to Bobby Kotick and Mike Griffith rabbit on about innovation and money for ages. You may as well. It’s Friday.

In a press releasing detailing full-year financials last night, Activision claimed it is now the biggest publisher in America, quoting NPD data. From here:

During the fiscal year, in the U.S., Activision grew its market share by 7.2% to a record 17.3%, was the #1 console and handheld software publisher in dollars, and had three top-10 best-selling titles in dollars overall according to The NPD Group.

For the fiscal year, Activision set an industry record for U.S. sell-through in dollars by a single publisher, according to The NPD Group.

The firm reported revenues of $2.9 billion for the fiscal year, as you can see here

Speaking in an investor call after the announcement of record financials last night, Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith remained coy on the issue of adding new instruments to the Guitar Hero franchise, saying only that Guitar Hero IV would provide a “significant leap forward in innovation” when it releases later this year.

“For the holiday, we’ll provide a significant leap forward in innovation for Guitar Hero worldwide on all platforms including the PS3, PS2, Xbox 360, Wii, and again on the DS,” he said.

“We’ll provide more information detailing this specific innovation in a couple weeks.”

Griffith added: “We’ve put a lot of additional development resources, a lot of additional music licenses resources, a lot of additional hardware supplier resources against the title to fuel growth over next year. We’re excited by the increased musical content and innovation we’re bringing. We do expect a leap forward in innovation with our holiday launch, and we’re about two weeks away from providing very specific details on that.”

Other instruments are involved. Bobby Kotick’s already said so.

Thanks, Gamespot.

Speaking in an investor call after the announcement of record financials last night, Activision execs confirmed that a DS bundle with the upcoming handheld version of Guitar Hero – Guitar Hero: On Tour – will be released when the game launches on June 22 in the US.

No specific date has yet been given for the game’s European launch.

“[It's] a breakthrough peripheral-based game for the Nintendo DS that brings the Guitar Hero experience to the 41 million DS users in North America and Europe so they can play Guitar Hero anywhere, anytime,” said Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith.

Thanks, Gamespot.

Speaking in an investor call after the announcement of record financials last night, Activision execs confirmed that a new, fully blown console game in the Tony Hawk’s series wouldn’t be released now until some time in the firms fiscal 2010, ending March 31, 2010.

Execs said the break was necessary “to deliver to deliver the kind of breakthrough this franchise needs.”

Project 8 got something of a drubbing from EA’s SKATE last year, which outsold the traditional skateboard-leading franchise by 2:1 in the Christmas 2007 period.

Hawk would be appearing on DS this year, though, the company said, and will employ some sort of secret technology to make it win.

“For competitive reasons, we’re not going to talk about it today, but we’re very bullish on the kind of innovation this will bring,” said Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith. “And this won’t be your father’s Tony Hawk.”

Thanks, Gamespot.

Speaking in an investor call after the announcement of record financials last night, Activision execs confirmed that the firm’s upcoming Treyarch-developed Bond game, The Quantum of Solace, is being developed using the Call of Duty 4 engine.

Few details on the new game have been released as yet, although Acitvision did launch a sparsely populated website for the project yesterday.

It’s releasing alongside the next Bond movie later this year.

Thanks, Gamespot.

In a conference call following the announcement of record financials last night, Activision said Call of Duty 5 will launch in the fourth quarter of the current financial year, ending March 31 2009.

“We’ll launch on all four platforms we’ve participated on in fiscal [year] 2008,” said Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith, referring to Call of Duty 4, which released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Nintendo DS in 2007.

Griffiths also confirmed that “we’ll [also] launch on the PS2 and the Wii.”

Griffiths added: “We’ll bring the intensity of the recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare title to a new military theater to engage our significantly larger user base which nearly doubled last year as new users came into the franchise.”

Thanks, Gamespot.

Activision has reported full-year financials of $2.9 billion for fiscal 2008, up 92 percent over the previous year.

Net income for the year was $345 million, or $1.10 per share, up from $0.28 per diluted share in fiscal 2007.

For the forth quarter ended March 31, the company reported net revenues of $602.5 million compared $312.5 in the same period in the previous year.

“Fiscal 2008 was the best year in our history and Q4 was the largest and most profitable non-holiday quarter, even though we did not release any new titles,” said Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.

“During the fiscal year, we were the #1 US console and handheld publisher in dollars for the first time ever, according to The NPD Group, and we grew our worldwide share of the console, handheld and PC markets year over year.”

More here.