Tag Archives: activision q3 2009 financials

Spong‘s bothered to sift through Activsion’s Q3 financials to discover that, of all the current gen consoles, Wii is the most lucrative for the firm.

Revenue was broken down as follows for the three months ending September 30:

1. Wii – 13 percent
2. 360 – 11 percent
3. PS2 – 9 percent
4. PlayStation 3 – 9 percent

Just goes to show. Thanks, GoNintendo.

Activision announced third quarter financials yesterday, and with it came a heap of news that put EA’s meagre investor call performance earlier this week to shame. Bobby’s the man.

Below you’ll find everything from the call, as well as a link to the full transcript and details of the figures themselves.

Have fun. We did.

• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – Activision blames Blizzard for $108 million Q3 loss
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – Guitar Hero is biggest selling franchise in US this year
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – More than 70 Acti SKUs to release next year
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – People want Guitar Hero instrument upgrades, say execs
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – We dropped VUG games because they weren’t exploitable enough, says Kotick
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – We can’t cope with GHWT demand, says Kotick
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – Full earnings call transcript published
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – High percentage of those leaving WoW return, says Morhaime
  Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – PS3 will grow faster than 360 this year, says Griffith
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – We may charge for GHWT user-content, says Kotick
• Acti-Blizz Q3 financials – Sequel-centric strategy has “worked very well,” says Kotick

On the back of third quarter financials, released yesterday, Activision just confirmed that, according to NPD, Guitar Hero is the biggest selling fanchise in the US so far this year.

The firm also said that, for the September quarter, Guitar Hero: On Tour was the best-selling title overall in North America for DS.

There’s more here.

Speaking in an earnings call following the release of third quarter financials yesterday, Acitvision boss Bobby Kotick said that the firm plans to release more than 70 SKUs next year, all based on “already proven franchises.”

Confirmed on the call for 2009 were multiple Guitar Hero titles, a new Bond game, “innovative” Call of Duty titles, and games based on films like Dreamworks’ Monsters vs Aliens and Wolverine.

Kotick also said that the company has plans to release games based on three to four new IPs, all of which he says are well into production. Later in the call, Activision’s Mike Griffith mentions Singularity, Prototype, and a Bizarre Creations racing title among these new IPs.

More on Destructoid.

Speaking in an earnings call following the release of third quarter financials yesterday, Activision publishing boss Mike Griffith said that the firm’s seeing strong interest from people wishing to upgrade their instruments for Guitar Hero games.

“We’re seeing households, not only in new penetration areas, but the existing, still continuing to show a very strong appetite for music and a very strong interest in upgrading instruments,” he said.

Company head Bobby Kotick joked, “We generally believe that every man, woman, and child everywhere needs at least nine guitars.”

You’re a funny guy, Bobby. Thanks, Kotaku.

Speaking in an earnings call following the release of third quarter financials yesterday, Activision boss Bobby Kotick sais the reason behind dropping Vivendi games – such as the 50 Cent sequel and Ghostbusters – when the company merged with Blizzard was because they simply weren’t exploitable enough.

The games Activision Blizzard didn’t pick up, he said, “don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises.”

You can’t say fairer than that, really. More on MTV.

Speaking in an earnings call following the release of third quarter financials yesterday, Activision said Guitar Hero World Tour had practically sold out and it didn’t anticipate being able to make enough kits to satisfy Christmas demand.

CEO Bobby Kotick said that Activision has “been surprised” by the response to the full band kit for Guitar Hero World Tour, with publishing boss Mike Griffith adding that the full band kit is “virtually sold out across the channel” and it’s “not likely that we’ll be able to keep up with demand [this holiday season].”

Overall, Griffith said that the entire Guitar Hero franchise has sold 24 million units to date, compared with 5 million units for MTV’s Rock Band.

More on GameDaily.

Seeking Alpha’s posted up a full transcript of the Activision earnings call last night, which followed the released of third quarter financials.

Bobby Kotick and Mike Morhaime are a barrel of laughs at the best of times, so get yourself a good time and start filtering through those ten pages of figures right now.

Speaking in an earnings call following the release of third quarter financials yesterday, Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime said that those leaving World of Warcraft for competing MMOs have a very strong chance of ultimately returning.

According to the exec, of players trying Age of Conan, 68 percent came back to World of Warcraft, with the figure for people having a go on Warhammer Online a lesser 46 percent.

There’s no escape. Well, there is for some. Kind of.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Activision CEO Mike Griffith said yesterday that he expects PS3 growth to outstrip 360 growth in the US and Europe in 2008.

The numbers:

• Xbox 360 – 6-7 million units
• PS3 – 8 million units
• Wii – 15 million units
• “Handhelds” – 24 million units

The handheld figure wasn’t split into DS and PSP.

Griffith was speaking in an earnings call following the release of third quarter financials yesterday.

Thanks, GameDaily.

Speaking in an earnings call after the release of third quarter financials yesterday, Activision boss Bobby Kotick said that the firm may start charging to access and uplod user-content in Guitar Hero World Tour.

“In just 10 days, our GH Tunes has attracted over 25,000 user-generated songs which means we’ll likely have up to 100,000 songs by the year end,” he said.

“These songs are easily downloaded by consumers and the ability to offer these songs on a subscription basis may very well result in the newest subscription opportunities in our portfolio.”

You go, Bobby.

Activision posted a Q3 loss yesterday on the back of increased sales.

Speaking in an earnings call after the release of third quarter financials yesterday, Activision boss Bobby Kotick said that the strategy of working on long term franchises as opposed to, well, not, has been successful for the firm.

“[Developing games with] clear sequel potential that can meet our expectations of 100+ million franchises, that’s a strategy that has worked very well for us,” he said.

Activision Blizzard’s portfolio consists of such consistently-performing franchises as Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and Call of Duty.

“I think generally our strategy has been to focus on the products… that we know if we release today, we’ll be working on ten years from now.”

Activision posted a Q3 loss yesterday on the back of increased sales.

More on Shacknews.

Activision’ posted a $108 million loss for the three months ending September 30, pinning the downside to costs relating to its merger with Blizzard.

Excluding charges related to its merger with Vivendi’s Blizzard unit, as well as items related to stock-options expenses, the company said it would have earned 7 cents a share for the period.

Revenue came in at $711 million.

There’s more on MarketWatch.