fy-2011
Latest
Sega earnings down in fiscal 2011, Mario & Sonic sell 3 million
Sega's earnings are down in the year ended March 31, 2012, which shouldn't come as a surprise given the company's recent extreme restructuring measures. Sega reported net sales of 395.5 billion yen ($5 billion), down 0.3 percent from 2011; net income dropped 47.4 percent to 21 billion yen.In the "consumer business" division (the one that deals with home video games), Sega reported a year-over-year drop in unit sales. Its best-performing game was Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, of course, at 3.28 million copies. Sonic Generations followed at 1.85 million; Virtua Tennis 4 sold 1.04 million across five platforms. Sega listed sales for Football Manager 2012 (710,000) and Yakuza: Dead Souls (550,000), but nothing else -- so we don't know how well Binary Domain did, except to guess that it probably didn't do very well.
Sharp posts $1.4 billion extraordinary loss, refocuses on mobile displays
Sharp has reported an extraordinary loss of 117.1 billion yen ($1.4 billion) for the financial year ending March 2012. The company has cited restructuring costs and inventory losses as the causes for the write-down, but also projected that its TV business would lose a further 18.7 percent of its projected sales in the current year. The company has decided to convert some of its big-screen LCD production lines into mobile LCDs as it tries to reassert its dwindling display business. It's yet more bad news after the company sold part of its LCD manufacturing business to Hon Hai, Sony withdrew from a joint venture and refused to deal with Sharp in the future, plus an 86 percent collapse in profits.
Nintendo reports $461.2 million in losses for fiscal 2011
Nintendo's announcement of losses for the fiscal year ending March 31 remains shocking, even though we had advance warning in the form of company forecasts. The actual results, with net sales of ¥647 billion ($8 billion!) were ¥12.3 billion lower than forecasted. The full-year loss was 37.3 billion yen ($461.2 million).Nintendo said its effort to boost 3DS sales was successful, and that software sales were slower than expected in the US and Europe over the holidays. In addition, the reduced selling price of both the Wii and the 3DS, and, of course, the strong yen, contributed to the losses. The 3DS was actually dropped below cost in the 2011 price cut, the financial report reveals.By the middle of the next fiscal year (the one that started April 1), Nintendo expects to stop selling 3DS below cost – we assume not by raising prices, but by reducing production costs. In addition, it expects to improve its fortunes with New Super Mario Bros. 2, the 3DS Animal Crossing, the new Brain Age game, and an Asian launch of the 3DS. Oh, and, of course, the Wii U.
Gamestop sees 'modest increase' to 'all-time high' sales of $9.55B in fiscal 2011
GameStop's total global sales reached $9.55 billion for the fiscal year (ending January 28, 2012), a "modest increase" from the same period last year, in which the company reported "all-time high" revenues of $9.47 billion.Due to some adjustments, GameStop added a mere $339.9 million to the moneybin this year, compared to its record net profit of $408 million in 2010 -- still, we understand that's plenty of cash to swim around in.The company also revealed that digital receipts grew 57 percent during the year to $453 million. GameStop explained to us earlier this year how it turned the digital market into a physical cash system and how publishers are reaping the rewards.
Ubisoft shipped 13 million Just Dance games in 2011, nearly 7 million Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Ubisoft announced big numbers for two of its major franchises in its latest earnings report -- two franchises that, dare we say it, are crying out for a crossover. The publisher reported a "near-30% increase" in dance game sales, including more than 13 million units shipped of its dance games -- a group including multiple Just Dances, and various celebrity "The Experience" games. Assassin's Creed Revelations, the forty-third Assassin's Creed game starring Ezio, hit "close to 7 million sell-in units," exceeding internal forecasts and, according to Ubisoft, hitting the #7 spot in worldwide sales for the year.That should provide a clue as to why Ubisoft is continuing the franchise with Assassin's Creed 3, in which Desmond has to prepare for a date by reliving Ezio's advanced dance lessons. Okay, that last part was just us dreaming of a crossover again.
Zynga lost over $400 million in 2011 while 58.5 million people played its games every day
Zynga's 2011 financial report is chock full of unexciting numbers (we'll get to them in a moment, if that's your kind of thing), but it does contain a few interesting morsels. For instance, Zynga completely owned the top five most played games on Facebook -- according to daily active user numbers -- refuting a report from Facebook late last year which fudged the numbers to bizarre effect.The company dominated Facebook's annual game charts with 54 million of the approximately 800 million users playing Zynga games every single day in Q4 (roughly 4.25 million fewer than Zynga's annual average DAUs). And those users were buying up enough microtransacted goods to earn Zynga $1.07 billion solely online for the entirety of 2011, with a total of $1.14 billion earned in revenue for the year.Now here's the bad news: despite earning over $1 billion in 2011, the company ended up with a net loss for the year of $404.3 million. According to the quarterly financials press release, Zynga paid out $510 million for "stock-based compensation expense for restricted stock units issued to employees" -- compensation it didn't have to pay until the company went public. The company's stock is currently trading $4.35 north of its introductory $10 price per share.
Activision revenues up in 2011, claims #1 publishing spot
The world hasn't converted entirely to a Kickstarter-based economy yet -- Activision's fiscal 2011 earnings are up again, with net revenues at $4.76 billion dollars (vs. 2010's $4.45 billion), exceeding its most recent outlook. Activision claimed the number one console and handheld publishing spot in both its fiscal Q4 (ending December 31) and the year of 2011.What drove this success? Like you don't know, but: Call of Duty. Modern Warfare 3 was the best-selling game in terms of dollars, and Black Ops was #5. Skylanders also contributed, as it was the #8 best-selling game in the fourth quarter, and best-selling kids' game of 2011.Digital revenue broke records again, with over 34 percent of that $4.76 billion net coming from "digital channels." No, you aren't forgetting some breakout XBLA hit from Activision -- those digital channels are COD map packs and WoW.
Lenovo releases Q3 earnings report, shipments rise, profits soar
Lenovo turned in another stellar earnings report yesterday, following up on a huge Q2 with an encouraging Q3. For the fiscal quarter ended December 31st, the PC maker saw its net profits reach $153 million, marking a 54 percent increase over last year's $99.7 million. Revenue also rose 44 percent last quarter to a record $8.4 billion, thanks in large part to a surge in PC sales. In mature markets, Lenovo saw revenues increase by a whopping 81 percent to $3.6 billion, while emerging market sales reached $1.3 billion, marking a 13 percent rise over the previous year and accounting for about 15 percent of the company's global revenue. The manufacturer saw particularly strong growth in China, where it now enjoys a market share of 35.3 percent, its highest ever. Lenovo attributed much of this to strong smartphone and tablet sales in China, while confirming plans to release a Smart TV within the country, as well (according to CEO Yang Yuanqing, it should hit the market in April). Laptops, however, remain the company's bread and butter, comprising 53 percent of its total revenue last quarter, with sales reaching $4.5 billion -- 30 percent higher than last year. For more numbers, check out the full press release, after the break.
Sega's home game division posts losses, Mario & Sonic a bright spot
Sega's "Game Contents" division (i.e. home video games) was down 5.1% for the nine-month period ending December 31, with the company reporting 63.5 billion yen ($833 million) in net game sales from the division ... and 5.5 billion yen in total losses. As for reasoning, Sega said only that "in the overseas markets, sales of the new titles remained slow as affected by adverse market condition." Best we can tell, that "adverse market condition" refers to our economies all being really, really terrible.The publisher shared sales numbers for its major releases. Sonic Generations sold 1.63 million copies across four platforms (Wii, PS3, PC, and the 3DS Generations game). Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games outsold it with 2.39 million copies -- despite not being released in Japan yet, and only being on one platform at the time, the Wii. And, uh, despite being a Mario & Sonic Olympics minigame collection. Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend for PSP (released in Japan only) was the other named hit, with 290,000 copies.Looking up at Sega's sales by platform, it's worth noting that Sega's single PlayStation Vita release, Virtua Tennis 4 (called Power Smash 4 in Japan) sold just 10,000 copies between the Vita launch date of December 17 and the end of the year. That ... doesn't seem very good.
Nikon posts Q3 2011 earnings, sees significant losses due to Thailand floods
Nikon posted its Q3 earnings report this morning, and there isn't a whole lot to smile about. The cameramaker had to swallow a one-off loss of ¥10.9 billion last quarter (approximately $143.1 million), due to widespread flooding that devastated its Thailand manufacturing plant, in October. Today's report comes just a day after Sony issued similarly dire figures, which it largely attributed to last year's flooding, as well. For the third quarter ended December 31st, Nikon posted a ¥3.7 billion loss (about $48.6 million), compared with the ¥9.7 billion ($127.3 million) it saw in net profits over the same period in 2010. Operating profits also fell to ¥8.2 billion from ¥18.6 billion in 2010, while total revenue dropped from ¥253.8 billion in Q3 2010 to ¥215.4 billion, last quarter. The company remains optimistic about the future, though, forecasting net gains of ¥55 billion this year, coupled with an expected revenue of ¥925 billion. For the full report, check out the source links below.
Capcom net sales down 29%, Monster Hunter sales strong (again)
For the nine months ending December 31, Capcom net sales down 29% year over year, to 50.27 billion yen ($660.6 million). Similarly, operating income for the period is down 47.2%, despite such collaborative cross-marketing efforts as "the launch of beverages based on popular characters, in order to leverage highly popular software to achieve increased visibility, expanded fan base and other synergistic effects."It's not so much that Capcom did poorly this year -- last year featured the breakout successes of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd and Super Street Fighter IV, among others. The blockbusters this year aren't as numerous and not quite as blockbustery. According to Capcom, Monster Hunter Tri-G sold 1.2 million copies since its December release in Japan. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record moved 800,000 and 500,000 respectively. That's still a pretty good return on a set of games entirely based on existing games.
EA was No. 1 game publisher on App Store in December, mobile revenue up over last year
EA's continuing efforts in the mobile space are paying off. Thanks to a ridiculous sale in December, the publisher managed to best all competitors and become the top publisher in the App Store throughout December. The Sims: FreePlay was the top-grossing iPad app.The news comes from the company's third quarter fiscal year earnings report, which shows a substantial increase in gains and registered users throughout its digital products compared to the same period last year. In the period ending December 31, 2010, EA Mobile earned $59 million, while earnings at the end of December 2011 were up to $70 million.
Canon announces middling Q4 2011 earnings report, president steps down
In the wake of a relatively strong Q3, Canon today unveiled a slightly less rosy earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2011. Net sales for the quarter reached ¥964.8 billion (about $12.6 billion), up from the ¥916 billion the company reported last quarter, but down about 9.7 percent from Q4 2010. Quarterly operating profit, meanwhile, rose 14.2 percent on the year, to ¥94.6 billion ($1.2 billion). Profit for the full fiscal year, however, declined by 2.4 percent to ¥378.1 billion (approximately $4.9 billion), compared with the ¥387.6 billion ($5.1 billion) Canon raked in for all of 2010. Net income, on the other hand, rose by nearly 14 percent over Q4 2010 (¥61.4 billion from ¥54 billion), but only 0.8 percent over the full fiscal year (¥248.6 billion in FY 2011, ¥246.6 billion in FY 2010). Looking forward to 2012, the cameramaker expects net income to increase to ¥250 billion, which would mark the second straight year of less than one percent growth. This forecast is lower than what many analysts expected, though Canon based its projections on assumptions that the yen will continue to rise against both the dollar and the euro, making Japanese exports more expensive in Western markets. It was against this backdrop of disappointment that company president and COO Tsuneji Uchida announced his resignation today, effective March 29th. The 70-year-old Uchida will be replaced by 76-year-old chairman Fujio Mitarai, with Uchida slipping into an advisory role. Coming off a year that saw a devastating tsunami in Japan and supply chain disruptions in flood-ravaged Thailand, Canon underscored its cautious outlook for 2012, in a statement: "The future remains increasingly uncertain amid growing concern over a global economic slowdown." Find Canon's full report at the source link, below.
PS3 catching up with Xbox 360 shipments worldwide
Sony reported 3.7 million PS3 unit sales worldwide for Q2 of fiscal year 2011 (which ended September 30), bringing its life-to-date total to 55.5 million units and improving on its year over year Q2 sales by around 200,000. Just last month, Microsoft touted 57.6 million shipped units of the Xbox 360 worldwide, bringing Sony within sight of the vaunted number two position behind Wii (Nintendo reported 89.36 million units shipped as of October). While Sony's document says "sales," it's difficult to tell whether that refers to sales to consumers ("sell-through") or shipments to retail ("sell-in"). Both competitors' numbers refer to shipments.
Apple Q4 financial call set for October 18
Apple has announced the date for its Q4 financial call. The call will take place on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. PT. As usual, Apple will detail it's financial results for the quarter that ends this Friday, September 30th. Besides addressing this past quarter, the call should also feature plenty of questions from analysts about the number of iPhone 5 units sold on launch weekend (the iPhone 5 will presumably launch by that time) and other standard questions about Apple's product pipeline, which will no doubt earn the standard "Apple doesn't comment on future products" answer. This financial call will also be notable because it will be the first call with Tim Cook as Apple's CEO. No doubt there will be lots of questions about how the transition is progressing and about any perceived or material impact the transition is having on the company.
Square Enix earnings drop, lack of 'major title releases' to blame
Square Enix reported a quarter that's likely to have executives as irritable and glum as the protagonist of your average Final Fantasy game. In the quarter ended June 11, the company reported net sales of ¥24.5 billion ($312 million), down 25% year over year. Net income was down 62%, at ¥690 million ($8.8 million). "In a quarter without major title releases," said president Yoichi Wada, "our Group's sales and profit were lower compared to the previous fiscal year. At the same time, however, we are making solid progress toward our targets for the full fiscal year ending March 2012." As far as successes, Wada named the browser-based Sengoku Ixa and Nicotto Town (above) -- services exclusive to the Japanese market. The rest of the fiscal year is also surprisingly Japan-focused, with only one game scheduled to be released from the Eidos side of the company between now and March, namely Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Also due in the west: Final Fantasy XIII-2 (January in North America, "Early 2012" in Europe), and Dragon Quest spinoff games Fortune Street and Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2, both published by Nintendo.
Activision enjoys record revenues in Q2, digital represents 37% of sales
Activision Blizzard enjoyed record revenues in the second quarter (ending June 30, 2011) with $1.1 billion in sales and $335 million in profit, compared to $967 million in sales and $219 million in profit during the same period last year. Overall, Activision has seen revenues of $2.6 billion for the first six months of the year, compared to $2.2 billion in 2010. Digital sales, like those Call of Duty: Black Ops map packs, saw a 27 percent increase year over year. Digital represented 37 percent of the company's total net revenues, or $423 million in the quarter. Don't take that to mean retail is dead to Activision: $660 million (an increase of 13 percent) comes from ye olde shoppe, though part of that 58 percent of the company's revenues still goes into champagne baths and caviar breakfasts.
Gameloft sales up 15% in first half of 2011
Gameloft is benefiting greatly from the age of mobile gaming, with sales up significantly in the first half of 2011. The company's controversial working conditions and ethically flexible game development appear to be producing results, with sales up 15 percent to €76.8 million ($108.8M). The publisher cited sales in emerging countries and the "massive success" of games on smartphones and tablets around the world for its prosperity. Gameloft's first-half sales on smartphones and tablets grew 55 percent year-over-year and represented 30 percent of sales; it plans to launch approximately 20 games for smartphones and tablets in the second half of the fiscal year. Gosh, we really need to crack the whip at Joystiq Publishing® China™ and get that Angry Cocker Spaniel catapult game out the door.
1.8 million PS3, 1.8 million PSP units sold from April-June
Sony announced that it sold 1.8 million PS3s worldwide between April 1 and June 30 (Q1 for Sony), a drop of around 600K from Q1 of FY 2010. Though numbers may have slipped, Sony is still predicting an uptick in sales for the whole of FY 2011: 15 million PS3s as compared to 14.3 in the year prior. On the games side, Sony fared a little better with 26.1 million PS3 games sold versus 24.8 in last year's first three months. The real success story for Sony's console business is the PSP, which moved 1.8 million systems in the first quarter. That's compared to 700K during the same time period for the Nintendo 3DS and the 1.2 million PSPs sold in Q1 FY 2010. In closing: Nintendo really needs a Monster Hunter game on 3DS.
Capcom sales fall in 1st fiscal quarter, income rises
Capcom has reported financial results for its first fiscal quarter of 2011, which ended June 30. The company reported sales of ¥11.95 billion ($153.7 million), down from ¥19.04 billion ($244.91 million) during the same period last year -- a 37 percent decrease. Despite the dip in sales, Capcom managed to pull in a net income of ¥338 million ($4.35 million), up by 58 percent from ¥213 million ($2.74 million) during the same period last year. Sales of "consumer online games" fell sharply, with Capcom stating that Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Monster Hunter Freedom 3 and Monster Hunter Frontier Online Forward "basically" met sales projections. Specifically, The Mercenaries 3D – available since June 2 in Japan and since June 28 in the US – moved 400,000 units. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade, only available as DLC for a few days in June, sold 300,000. Monster Hunter Freedom 3 still managed to move 100,000 copies despite being released all the way back in December. Meanwhile, Capcom's arcade sales were up eight percent despite the difficulties faced after Japan's earthquake earlier this year. Social games are also doing quite well for the company, cresting 19 million downloads largely on the back of Smurf's Village.
