Activision's results meet record expectations
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Publisher's $1.51 billion annual earnings forecast comes true; executives confirm more Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, and Marvel for this year.
Activision started the month of May telling investors to expect big numbers from its full-year report for fiscal 2007. Today the publisher ended the month by delivering on its prediction, posting $1.51 billion in revenues for the fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2007.
As big as last year was for the company, it expects this year to be even bigger. Activision is forecasting $1.8 billion in revenue for fiscal 2008, with an operating income more than double that of 2007's $73.1 million.
Activision executives shed a bit more light on their expectations for the year in a conference call with investors today. Activision's own hardware sales projections were among the topics discussed, and the publisher is apparently banking on the console wars being a three- or perhaps four-horse race for the year. The publisher expects the Wii and the Xbox 360 to lead the pack with each selling 5 million systems during calendar-year 2007, with the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 not too far behind at 4 million systems each. The publisher also expects handhelds to move 11-12 million systems, but executives did not break out that figure into PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance numbers.
On the software side, Activision suits confirmed that they had another Marvel game in the works, and touted the expected holiday launch of Guitar Hero III. They also assured analysts that they had "significantly increased" their guitar peripheral production capabilities so as to be ready for the holiday season demand and to avoid the shortages at retail that initially befell Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360. On top of that, execs promised to "expand the depth and breadth of the franchise through continued emphasis on Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II," suggesting more content related to those games will be made available.
Activision also announced that id Software's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for the PC had slipped into its fiscal year's second quarter, which begins in July. However, executives reiterated that the publisher will ship Tony Hawk's Proving Ground and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare during the fourth quarter of calendar year 2007. They also confirmed a new Marvel game was being prepped for fall 2007 and Activision's first James Bond game would arrive next year alongside the first follow-up to Casino Royale. No platforms for the latter two titles were announced.
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
45 comments
Activision needs to not squander the opportunity to return greatness to the James Bond video games. I think everyone would love to see a good James bond game. Just put some money into it and do it right.
The other marvel will be wolverine for his up coming movie later this year & call of duty 4 cant waitgonna be awesome.
cant wait to play call of duty 4 on my PS3!!!!!!!! but its sad there taking it out pretty late, I wished it would be in the summer but since it is during november (im guessing) then it better give us some REALLY good gameplay.
YAY!!!!! Another Marvel game... Activision already has my money on that one!! :D I Just Hope it has Captain america, Thor, Hulk And Iron Man on it!
I am very pumped for the new Call Of Duty game, I hope that not 1 more ww2 game is ever made
Sweet all 3 of the big 3 have finally reported their earnings now it's time for an all out battle royale! EA vs Activision vs Ubisoft! THE BIGGEST 3 OF THEM ALL! They should really fight each other... in this way... by agreeing to make a certain type of game and then competing to make that game and see who does it best... yeah....
Well pencilpusher69, Good point but. It was only the ps3 that took 500k sales to make your money back. As in you developed it for the ps3 from scratch. It is way less if you develop it for another system like 360 or pc and then port it to the ps3. Also it never was high for the 360. In fact it may be actually easier than last gen for the 360. As long as you dont go trying to use EVERY graphical effect known to man. This was kinda interesting news to me when I saw the hardware sales projection. But I guess not if your a Sony fan. Great news if your a Microsoft or Nintendo fan. imo
This is the exact same thing that Capcom said when they showed the success Lost Planet and Dead Rising have had on the Xbox 360. I can see why Activision is making so much money from the Xbox 360. With Call of Duty 2: Game of the Year Edition now a best-seller priced at only $29.99, that is helping them quite a bit. Also, the Xbox 360 had the best version of Call of Duty 3, and the new Call of Duty 3 Gold Edition with all of the downloadable maps built into the game is selling very well at stores, sometimes on sale for as low as $49.99 or $39.99. Xbox 360 had the best version of Call of Duty 3. The Playstation 3 version is one of the many third-party games that doesn't let you talk online while you are playing. It's cool the way the Xbox 360 version let's you use the headset that comes with the Xbox 360 to talk online with the people you are playing with, while you are playing. The PS3 version of Call of Duty 3 also had all of those framerate problems that the Playstation 3 is now known for in most of its games. So, I'm glad I spent the time to see which version was best, because the Xbox 360 version is WAY better! When I went to buy Guitar Hero 2 for the Xbox 360, Best Buy had already sold over 90 copies of the game in the first hour of its release! Thankfully stores like Best Buy and Circuit City knew that Guitar Hero 2 would be big sellers, and they ordered a lot of copies! I can't wait to play Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox 360!!! I'm glad Activision is benefiting so much from being such a major supporter of Xbox 360.
This is good. I just hope they don't get to cocky with their earnings and start coasting. *cough* EA *cough*
Activision hasn't done anything that interested me since they sold off the Total War publishing rights to Sega two years ago.
With all of these titles this fall, it's going to be just that much harder for any of them to have any chance of selling the 500k required to make their money back on the PS3, and even the 360. This fall is going to be an interesting time to watch what happens to the gaming business.
Some of the games mentioned above are Activision's masterpieces ... no wonder they are achieving big sales .... COD was the next big step after MOHAA series from EA and still it has no rival being a WW2 FPS !!! :D
Since they have all of this money...Maybe they should consider rethinking the pricing on the GHII tracks.
Lotta good games comin out this year... but so far... nothing huge. Gonna be a year full of 8.5's, but no 9.5's. Call of Juarez looks more intriguing than COD4 (looks a lot like GRAW which I hated). Never liked GTA games, except Bully was excellent. Don't care much for Halo and think it won't surpass GoW, but I'm sure it will be fun, just not mindblowingly awesome. No word yet on Dead Rising 2... assuming that there is going to be one. Ironcially, the game I'm looking forward to the MOST this is: Puzzle Fighter, XBLA.
I guess COD 4 is good. But really more of the same crap....run....shoot....hide....shoot. New content please!
@just_an_opinion: lol, PS3 owners are getting most of the 360 games coming out as well... *Hmmm.......* But I'll be getting the exclusives this year though. Only DMC4/ Assassin's Creed interests me in multi-platform.
@ just_an_opinion I agree completely, I'm actually worried for the first time that I might not be able to afford all the games I want because there are SO many good ones coming out within the last few months of this year. Crazy stuff!
Activision, EA, and V.Universal; the triple threat. The gaming industry rakes in so much money now... it's unreal.
wow i didn't realise they are releasing call of duty 4 this year. man, i never though i'd say this but i wish all these publishers and devs would take it easy for a while , theres already too many games i want to get coming out this year. i will naver have enough time or money to invest in all of them!!!!!! i can't believe we are this spoiled for choice, on the 360 at least.
Actually, Activision is NOT old-school...the original company was based in Northern California and went belly-up years ago. The current owners bought it and moved it to L.A. and restarted it.
i can't wait to see the guitar for PS3. i know it's going to be cool. i'm sure it'll be the coolest looking guitar to date.
Activision is old school. This isn't like Atari or Acclaim, company names that have been handed off through the years. Activision is the original. One of the few game industry giants that developers consistently enjoy working with, probably because Activision's company culture (and leaders) have remained the same for a very long time.
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