Atari down $23.6M on shrinking revs

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Jun 13, 2008 5:08 pm PT

Once-mighty publisher's annual revenues $42.3 million lower than prior year, totaling just $80.1 million.

The ongoing restructuring at Atari is having the desired effect of reducing the publisher's losses, but the steps taken to right the ship--including selling off development studios and shying away from AAA games--are lowering revenues as well. Atari today announced its fourth quarter and year-end financial results for the 12 months ended March 31, and the company's numbers were suitably smaller all the way around.

For the full year, Atari revenues were $80.1 million, down roughly 35 percent from the previous year's $122.3 million in sales. During that time frame, the publisher chalked up net losses of $23.6 million, trimmed considerably from the $69.7 million lost the year before.

The publisher's fourth-quarter numbers followed the same trend as the full-year figures. Atari reported a loss of $3.7 million on sales of $15.3 million for the three months ended March 31. In the same quarter the previous year, Atari brought in $26.9 million in revenues, with a relatively whopping net loss of $61.7 million.

There is reason to believe the current quarter may prove kinder to Atari. In addition to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 debuts of the Dragon Ball Z series with this week's release of Burst Limit, the long-awaited Alone in the Dark revamp has gone gold and will arrive in stores by the end of the month.

93 Comments

  • snakes3425

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:19 am PT

    Seems Atari hasn't learned from it's mistakes, at least this time they're not torpedoing an entire industry.

  • subzero2k2004

    Posted Jun 17, 2008 11:28 am PT

    I don't think that they are going to release it for the PS3, until they increase the sales profits on the sale when it goes out for the XBOX360 and the additional other consoles. Considering the net loss, and the amount they are lossing in profit value. They expect September for the release date for the PS3, but I doubt it. Considering that they are only releaseing it so far for the Wii, XBOX360 and the PC format.

  • arc_salvo

    Posted Jun 17, 2008 6:48 am PT

    "Atari"? Don't they mean "Infogrames"? That was the name of the studio back when Neverwinter Nights 1 was under development before it abruptly changed its name to "Atari" all of a sudden by the time NWN 1 was released. Ah well, at least they published NWN1 and NWN2. If only Interplay and especially Black Isle had stayed afloat, and they had helped Bioware release NWN1. History would've been much different, and we'd probably have more CRPG's and RPG's in general going around, like Planescape Torment 2, or KOTOR 3 and such.

  • marthinuss

    Posted Jun 17, 2008 5:06 am PT

    As a 18 year PC gamer I must admit, I rarely play games on my PC anymore. Back in the day the NES was hopelessly under powered compared to my PC, but lately the PS3 is not that bad compared to a PC and just the fact that I can insert my BD and start playing far outweighs the problems I have installing games and making them run smooth and effiecient, esp. lately with stupid Vista and the whole Shader Model 2 vs. 3, I have shader model 2 but can't play any SM 3 games and I am sure as nuts not buying a new graphics card just for SM 3, plus my console's lifespan is a lot longer than my PC's

  • Marqmax

    Posted Jun 17, 2008 3:43 am PT

    "mugupo I don't care why their stock did so bad, is it because of bad management perhaps need to fire their CEO? COD4 did so well in sales, yet their stock keep going down hill?"

    What does Atari have to do with Activision?

  • Humorguy_basic

    Posted Jun 17, 2008 12:46 am PT

    As a 20 year PC gamer I have to say this, although I don't want to.....

    Part of Atari's problems of late is that is had released more PC games than practically any other publisher, and PC games are not selling in high enough numbers any more. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a great game, but it has only sold around 70% of the number that the first Neverwinter Nights did. The new Alone in the Darkl will probably not sell on PC what the first, second or third Alone in the Dark's did 10 years ago!

    I hope PC gaming makes a comeback, and I hope Atari are part of that.

  • mugupo

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:24 pm PT

    I don't care why their stock did so bad, is it because of bad management perhaps need to fire their CEO? COD4 did so well in sales, yet their stock keep going down hill?

  • Jedilink109

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 5:32 pm PT

    I can't wait for Alone In The Dark. It looks awesome. I think they knew that after the horrendous movie, they had to make a AAA title for the next AITD game or else the series would die. And the new game looks fantastic! I can't wait.

  • Lord__Darkstorn

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 3:49 pm PT

    I guess you can't support a company with one good game, even if The Witcher was astounding (I just beat it yesterday; wow that ending was good).

  • thug_angel123

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 3:08 pm PT

    I am so eagerly waiting for alone in the dark 5 but I guess a single game can't do wonders and I played dbz's demo and it was below average

  • lamprey263

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 2:36 pm PT

    hopefully the new Alone in the Dark will make Atari a lot of money, especially since it's being ported every which way

    though, I think Atari's demise is pretty much guaranteed since Phil Harrison crossed over and started insisting they invest their efforts entirely into the MMORPG market

  • thenephariouson

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 11:01 am PT

    Dont confuse the brand name 'ATARI' with the company 'ATARI'.

  • DarkElf2112

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:18 am PT

    It's hard to believe that one of gamings signature names is basically irrelevant. DBZ and Alone In The Dark are solid titles that will sell well but Atari really needs a monster hit to get back to being important again.

  • Paul_TheGreat

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:16 am PT

    Just please die already Atari.

  • Paul_TheGreat

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:15 am PT

    Just please die already Atari.

  • pourya_ahmadian

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:19 am PT

    the ATARI is so GREAT;SO;it can put itself out of this;the ALON IN THE DARK can do it for ATARI;

  • Makhdoom82

    Posted Jun 16, 2008 3:28 am PT

    Don't just stand there watching your losses Atari. Go make some good games right now !!! Or there will be no Atari !!!

  • slickr

    Posted Jun 15, 2008 8:56 pm PT

    Alone in the Dark is Atari's next game and its been developed by external studio. Watch the latest trailer, they've also had pressure from Atari to finish fast but fortunatly fought for longer development period.
    The game seems interesting in the trailers and gameplay videos but we'll have to wait and see. Alone in the dark ships in the end of this month i think!

  • ctburesch

    Posted Jun 15, 2008 8:48 pm PT

    The original Atari was sold many years ago. This development studio just bought the name which never helped them. And no person with brains would ever buy this studio. So whoever said maybe EA would buy them is a very much suicidal possibility. They just need to close their doors and flush the keys down the toilet.

  • SonicRaptor

    Posted Jun 15, 2008 7:00 pm PT

    Wow, a company named "Atari" going downhill...who would have thought it, huh? Guess they took just more than the name years ago.

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