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Activision Q3 sales leap 80 percent

By Emma Boyes, GameSpotPosted Feb 7, 2008 5:15 pm PT

Guitar Hero publisher boasts record sales of $1.48 billion, ups yearly projections, praises hot sales of COD4 and GHIII.

At the beginning of December, Vivendi and Activision announced the biggest union in gaming history as the two became one with the snappy moniker Activison Blizzard. The deal, which was valued at some $18.9 billion, created the world's biggest third-party game publisher.

At the end of January, Vivendi reported what will likely be its last set of separate financials for subsidiary Blizzard, which saw the World of Warcraft developer pulling in its first billion-dollar year for sales.

Now it's Activision's turn, and the other half of the newly formed alliance wasn't about to be beaten--the company's financial third quarter ended December 31 has borne net revenues of more than $1.48 billion. This is a massive 80 percent jump from the same period in the company's previous financial year of $824.3 million. Net income was almost double the amount made in the same period in 2006, this year punching in at $272.2 million, compared to $142.8 million.

For the total nine months in the company's financial year so far, the numbers are currently crunching at $2.3 billion (compared to $1.2 billion in the previous nine-month period), and net income more than tripled to $300.7 million, compared to $100.2 million.

Activision named six games as being big hits and driving sales: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Spider-Man, Shrek the Third, and Transformers: The Game. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the best-selling title in terms of units sold in Europe, North America, and PAL regions for Activision in 2007, when it shifted over 7 million copies. Guitar Hero III, on the other hand, was number one in terms of dollars made.

In general, the future is looking bright for video games, Activison CEO Bobby Kotick commented in a statement. He said, "Broader audiences are responding to products like Guitar Hero, and we expect that the demographics for video games will continue to expand." He also added that this was now the 16th consecutive year that sales were up for the company.

Console sales provided the lion's share of Activision's sales, bringing in $1.1 billion this quarter, compared to $96 million for handhelds, and $88 million for PC game sales. The Xbox 360 bought in the highest percentage of sales at 33 percent, followed by stalwart the PlayStation 2 with 25 percent, then the PlayStation 3 with 14 percent, and the Wii with 12 percent.

The merger between Activision and Vivendi is still on track, the company reports, with the deal expected to be finalized before the end of the June.

Activision amended its projections for a third time on the back of this report--the company now expects full fiscal 2008 net revenues of $2.65 billion, and earnings per diluted share of 97 cents.

66 Comments

  • Malakie24

    Posted Feb 12, 2008 6:00 am PT

    It is to bad that Piracy has limited them from ONLY making 1.48 BILLION... for a single quarter!! Such a shame that piracy is hitting them so hard as everyone says piracy is doing.... I hope they are able to afford to buy enough food to sustain themselves and perhaps get some help paying the rent since piracy has obviously killed their bottom line...

    hurts the small, indy devs for sure, but these monster companies are not hurting at all.. tired of hearing them complain when I see numbers like this and we end up paying more and more for each new game.

    I also noticed something else.. 1.1 bil in console sales! I hate console, I am a PC gamer... If the trend continues like that, devs are gonna give up on the PC just because of the money... 88 million in PC sales, 1.1 billion console..... not to hard to figure out what market you should be concentrating on... and that sucks because consoles are just not my thing especially for strategy and RPG..

  • guertt

    Posted Feb 11, 2008 6:33 am PT

    They should keep in the way of modern warfare!!! forget about wwII

  • CasinoOutlaw247

    Posted Feb 11, 2008 4:09 am PT

    Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare = $$$ and it was a well MADE game not well "maded" anyway, I wish the next version wasn't World War II! please give it a rest!

  • _Piranha_

    Posted Feb 11, 2008 1:06 am PT

    " Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ".. yeah cool ! game..
    Q.2008-2009 --> Call of Duty 5 ???, Return To Castle Wolfenstein II (RtCW.2) ???

  • Dark_Lord777

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 10:06 pm PT

    wow Guitar Hero has become very mainstream! when south park parodies something, you know its popular.

  • ColdGen

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 6:51 pm PT

    Onya Activision! And God Bless Infinity Ward!

  • mohammadan

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 6:37 pm PT

    special thanx to infinity ward !

  • athenian29

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 5:04 pm PT

    Lol "followed by stalwart the Playstation 2..." typos are funny.

  • athenian29

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 4:57 pm PT

    Bravo Activision! Go out with a bang!

  • two_times

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 4:42 pm PT

    Infinity Ward>Activision

  • Rowr14

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 2:31 pm PT

    dont set your hopes to high on cod 5 people, it will most likely be passed on to treyarch, (as was the terrible 3rd title) while infinity ward work on cod 6.

    I can already see it selling way to many copies purely off the reputation of 4.

    Maybe we will get lucky and someone capable will make it, so its not outright terrible.

  • xtremeskiia15

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 10:05 am PT

    Gamespot forgot to mention that Activision also said xbox360 outsells ps3 in contrary to EA's last prediction. Keep in mind Activision actually has a bases for their predictions since they actually had a great Q3 as opposed to EA's quarter where they lost a significant amount of money.

  • kalkhaja

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 9:16 am PT

    well done activision.... activision-blizzard FTW!

  • 04JETTA

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 9:00 am PT

    dang i know where i should invest my monies

  • winfield_redfox

    Posted Feb 10, 2008 3:27 am PT

    Just cause the gamespot. people think of it as percentages and industries doesn't mean that it involves any one of you or me, games are rated here with regards to hollywood and graphics..... not talent present here in some other fields........ its a sad loop.

  • sickside6

    Posted Feb 9, 2008 4:42 pm PT

    Well they are going to be the biggest company in gaming history

  • Ozzie234

    Posted Feb 9, 2008 4:25 pm PT

    Or do a WWI game. Sit in the trench, whistle blows, all go over the top, 75% get shot, the rest retreat OR takes the next trench....and repeat.

    How bout that? Would rock.

  • hazelnutman

    Posted Feb 9, 2008 3:29 pm PT

    funny how they can't see simple statistics.

    no WWII = more money

  • SrTVBR

    Posted Feb 9, 2008 2:43 pm PT

    All this because the well maded CoD4...

  • NyGin07

    Posted Feb 9, 2008 11:08 am PT

    prepare for the milking of many franchises. expect guitar hero and call of duty to go the way of tony hawk.

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