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Atari posts $12 million Q1 loss. Who's got the will?
At this very moment in the town of Couer d'Couers, Ned, the pie maker, with the gift to bring the dead back to life for a short time (without consequences) stood over the body of Atari. The facts were these: The company of Atari was 35 years, 16 weeks, 4 hours and 9 minutes old. After already posting a $70 million loss in the last fiscal year, firing most of its board, borrowing $10 million and now reporting a $12 million loss for Q1, it was believed Atari had finally expired. But, just as the pie maker was about to touch the body -- to bring it back to life ever so briefly -- and ask where Atari stashed the will revealing its alleged secret fortune, a wholly unexpected thing happened. Atari popped up from the table and exclaimed, "I'm not dead yet!" And so, the startled pie maker left the morgue still trying to catch his breath, knowing he'd return soon enough.Atari finally filed their delayed financial report for the quarter ending June 30 and laid out the bad news that they're down another $12 million. The company already sold most of its franchises like Stuntman and Driver; they're also in a dispute about potentially losing their Dragon Ball Z license as well. According to the quarterly report Atari states "substantial doubt about [their] ability to continue as a going concern."
Activision hits Q2 financial high, Guitar Hero fuels sales
Activision posted financial results for its second quarter ending September 30th, highlighting a 69% increase in revenues over the same quarter from last year -- an improvement of $318 million. The publisher's net income was only $700,000, better than the $24 million loss experience this time last year. And yes, it can thank Guitar Hero for most of it, now and in the future.The Q2 results were driven by Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s and (unfortunately) Transformers. Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision, says that the quarter saw net revenues at their highest in the "company's history." Now, as nice as Q2 was, Q3 is expected to be a show stopper. Revenues are expected to break $1 billion due to the release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and the buzz surrounding Call of Duty 4.
Analyst: 10% of iPhones sold to unlockers
Apple Insider has an analyst saying that 10% of iPhones sold in Apple stores in September were being bought by people who are then turning around and selling them unlocked. That seems like a big number when you picture the situation Gene Munster, the analyst, describes: "one Apple employee acknowledged that customers were buying five iPhones per store visit in order to turn around and resell them unlocked."But is it really that big? 90% of people buying iPhones are sticking with AT&T, so considering that Apple got the support of a network and a slice of the service plan profits, a number like 10% of unlocks actually seems to me like it validates Apple's choice to sell the phone locked. SDKs, jailbreaks, and customer rights (oh my) aside, if only 10% of iPhones out there are unlocked (and the number's probably much lower, as all the iPhones sold before September were probably not unlocked at all), Apple's original decision was justified, in my view.But I'm not defending them for breaking things with 1.1.1. Apple hasn't released the numbers on September sales yet, but 10% of a lot is still a lot, in terms of bricked iPhones because of the unlock crackdown. I haven't heard any tales of folks who paid a lot for an unlocked iPhone and then got a brick with the 1.1.1 update, but I'm sure they're out there and unhappy.
New QuickBooks for Mac coming in 2008
QuickBooks 2008 apparently was released this week by Inuit-- unfortunately, this makes the release of the Windows client only. Macworld, however, is reporting that if QuickBooks is your thing, you've only got a few more months to wait. Intuit is still planning to release a version of QB 2008 for Mac... in 2008 itself.The quote comes from the Intuit FAQ for Mac, which says basically that they're waiting for Leopard to reveal itself before they release their own software. Not a bad reason for delay, I guess, but I really wonder what extra features Inuit might include in their software that would require Leopard to work. Will QuickBooks really be using any of the Core Image stuff to beef up their presentations and spreadsheets? Doubtful, but it would be awesome if they did.At any rate, Intuit says that if you need QuickBooks right now, there's always the 2007 version, and to stay tuned for everything else, including a release date for 2008.
iPhone price cut generates 200% sales increase
When Steve first announced the iPhone price cut, the nay-sayers were vocal: "It's selling so poorly," they said, "Apple has had to reduce the price significantly."By Piper Jaffray's estimations, Apple and AT&T was selling an average of 9,000 iPhones per day before the price cut, resulting in 594,000 units sold by September 5th.Combined with the 270,000 phones sold in the previous quarter, customers would have had to buy an additional 136,000 iPhones to reach 1 million units by September 9th - an increase of 200% in sales volume.Steve was right: They're selling boatloads of these things, and wanted to quickly sell boatloads more...and that's what's happening.[Via My iTablet]
Atari may get the boot from Nasdaq
If Atari's financial woes weren't already a beacon that the legendary game company has fallen far, their notice of potential delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange should pretty much seal the deal. Atari received the notice from Nasdaq because they did not file their financial report for their fiscal year ending March 31.Atari says they haven't filed yet because they're still trying to figure out what accounting entries they need to make. With any luck The Witcher and Alone in the Dark will help the company out this fiscal year. Heck, for all we know, My Horse & Me could be Atari's killer application which will help them ride into the land of fiscal fortitude.
Motorola's profit forecast goes from bad to worse
Maybe the Sidekick Slide is Moto's savior -- then again, maybe it's not -- but either way, the company seems to need a huge hit (or three) in the wings to turn its luck around. In the wake of two hefty rounds of job cuts, Motorola has now announced that it'll lose money in the second quarter and no longer expects its mobile devices unit to turn a profit at all this year, thanks largely to underperforming sales in Europe and Asia. In other news, Garriques' shoes have now been filled by a man going by the name of Stu Reed, apparently some "supply chain executive" who has been tapped to play the next fall guy get this sinking ship back on track. We've said it before and we'll say it again: where's the US version of the Z8, Moto?
Amp'd regains connectivity, drops lawsuit against Verizon
Apparently, it would just be far too easy for Amp'd to bow out of the fledgling MVNO realm after filing for bankruptcy, as the company has recently reached an agreement with Verizon Wireless that enables it to use The Network in exchange for Amp'd dropping its lawsuit. The suit was reportedly filed after Verizon moved to kick the Los Angeles-based Amp'd off its network, but we can't exactly blame Verizon for being quite perturbed after not receiving $33 million in payments. Of course, we're sure this spat is far from finished, but the case will press on next week while Amp'd customers can once again intrepidly chat away on Verizon's equipment -- for the time being, at least.[Via mocoNews]
Sony ships 5.5 million PS3s - almost hits estimates
Despite the recent doom and gloom announcements, Sony reported that they shipped out 5.5 million PlayStation 3's during the last fiscal year (ending March 31st); almost hitting their initial estimates of 6 million. Later in the financial report, they also stated that they shipped out 13.2 million copies of software during the same period.Right now, the PS3 is outpacing the Xbox 360's sell rates during the same post-launch timeframe, though it's performance pales compared to a certain little white box. And while it can be said that the Wii and the PS3 aren't in direct competition, that is not quite true for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The PS3's rate of purchase has started to plateau, so it's clear that Sony needs something to pique the general public's interest in it in order to stay competitive with the Xbox 360. Fortunately, the embargo from the Sony Gamer's Day drops soon. Once that happens, I have a feeling that people will start getting excited about the PS3 once again ... Sony Financial Results [.pdf file][Via N4G]
Iwata reminds Nintendo of America who's boss
(Hint: it's Iwata. Iwata is boss.) Nintendo just released their financial results briefing, which contains a transcript of a question-and-answer session with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Ever wondered what it would be like to work for Iwata? This quote should replace that wonder with terror: "When I received a report from the U.S. that they sold 1 million Pokémon Diamond & Pearl already, I asked them, 'why did you sell only 10,000 Brain Age last week, when Europe sold through 30,000?' This is a typical example of how I communicate with our people in the U.S."Why would Iwata be so mean in the face of ostensibly great news? Because he's a huge jerk? Probably not. For one thing, Pokémon selling a million copies doesn't mean that anyone at Nintendo of America did anything particularly well. All they had to do was release it, making sure that the word "Pokémon" was clearly visible on the box.But more importantly, Iwata isn't looking just to sell a bunch of games. He wants to expand the gaming market in the US like the DS has in Japan, and for that, Brain Age needs to get into non-gamers' hands. Then Nintendo can sell a bunch of games to them as well as to Nintendo fans. As Iwata notes in the report, 500,000 DS systems were sold in the US in March, which is a large number, but not as large as the 600,000 to 700,000 sold in Japan each month.[Via NeoGAF]
Iwata: Expect more Wiis in stores this month
The whole text of Nintendo's financial results briefing is worth reading (and would be mandatory if we could assign homework), but we'd especially like to point out this quote from Satoru Iwata: "As this month's production will be sold in the worldwide markets by the end of the next month, a small increase is expected at the retail outlets from next month." We knew that Nintendo was looking into expanding production, but could we already see results?This report is from the end of April, so "next month" probably refers to May. We hope the statement is accurate and that the supply of Wiis increases from none to some very soon!
Nintendo announces record year, thanks DS and Wii
If you've been following our Japanese hardware sales series, or caught last month's NPD report, or have a pulse and leave the house, you've no doubt heard that Nintendo's DS and Wii consoles are ... well, they're sort of a big deal. How big a deal? The pair are responsible for Nintendo's "record high" fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2007. The stats: consolidated fiscal year revenues of ¥966.5 billion, a 90% increase operating profits of ¥226.0 billion, a 150% increase 23 million Nintendo DS consoles last year, lifetime sales of 40 million 5.84 million Wii consoles in less than five months, "nearly" 29 million Wii games Now for the projections for the fiscal year which began April 1, 2007: consolidated sales increasing nearly 18% to ¥1.14 trillion operating profits growing nearly 20% to ¥270 billion 22 million Nintendo DS systems and 130 million games 14 million Wii systems and 55 million games worldwide (will that be enough?) Not quite the mom 'n pop outfit, are they? We're gonna need a "THEY PRINT MONEY!!!" graphic for these sort of things going forward.
Weak dollars. Strong pounds. Expensive iPods.
The weak US dollar and the strong British pound have made iPods more expensive in Britain than ever according to the Guardian newspaper. An 5.5G iPod video that costs £190 in the UK can be purchased in the US for the UK equivalent of £128. This is yet another reason that travelers might want to take advantage of the iPod vending machines now springing up at many US airports and convention centers.
Cha-Ching on reverse sale until 1.0 debuts Friday, a new feature announced each day this week
Midnight Apps, as promised, has announced Cha-Ching 1.0 is landing Friday, April 20th, 2007. Cha-Ching is an excellent personal finance management app that I feel safe calling a Quicken killer, at least for many people's needs. Since its beta days, Cha-Ching has featured things like a simplified UI, tagging and other goodies to bring a little fun to tracking one's cash and credit flow, but this final 1.0 promises even more new features. So many new features, in fact, that the company will be announcing one big one each day this week until Friday, when 1.0 will be released for download (in light of this promotion, I tip my hat to their site designer for the sketchup and 'not quite finished' touches on the site). Today's feature: Spotlight Integration - users will be able to search for any transaction or tag from the comfort of a Spotlight window, which means they can also create things like Smart Folders to get a quick glance at transactions without even having to open Cha-Ching.Stay tuned to Midnight Apps all this week to hear more about the great new stuff coming in Cha-Ching 1.0, but if you're on the fence with whether to purchase, you might want to act sooner than later: now that the app is all growed up, it's going on a 'reverse sale' that ends Friday. Through its time in beta, Cha-Ching has cost $20 and is still at that price - but only for today. Each day this week, Cha-Ching's price will be raised by $5 until Friday, where it will take on its full price of $40. If you ask me, a happy user of Cha-Ching since January when I attended the developer's presentation at the Apple Store during Macworld 07, Cha-Ching is a great value even at its full price, so any day you buy this week will be a bargain. But you don't have to take it from me: you can download a demo of Cha-Ching in its current 0.5.2 beta version to get your finance on and decide for yourself.
Apple under European antitrust scrutiny
The AP reports that the European Commission has launched an antitrust probe into iTunes. According to the article a single track costs $1.56 in the UK, $1.44 in Denmark and $1.32 in Germany and Belgium, while at the same time users are restricted to the iTunes store of their country of origin. "Consumers are thus restricted in their choice of where to buy music and consequently what music is available, and at what price," the commission said in its statement. Apple's spokesman said it was prevented from creating a single European store by its contracts with music labels and publishers and the rights they negotiated with them. This investigation is apparently separate from the whole ongoing Apple/DRM foofaraw.
Gamestop sales hit $5.3 billion in 2006
A report on Next Generation lays out Gamestop's financial performance for the fiscal year 2006. Needless to say, the world of game retail is as lucrative as ever, even if Gamestop has been making every effort to diminish it in size for consumers. Full-year sales experienced a surge of 72%, from $3.1 billion to $5.3 billion. Out of that, annual net earnings for the year, ending February 3, rose to an impressive $158.3 million, while operating income went up to $334 million.Furthermore, Gamestop has expressed plans to open between 500 and 550 more stores worldwide. The group is counting on a strong first quarter in 2007, powered by the likes God of War II, the Pokémon franchise and several Xbox 360 titles. With so much economic momentum, don't expect Gamestop to roll over and change their questionable pre-owned game prices or their definition of "new" anytime soon.
What should Apple do with twelve BEEEL-lion dollars?
This is the question posed by Arik Hesseldahl in today's Byte of the Apple column for BusinessWeek: what should Apple do with its $12 billion in cash and short-term investments? His suggestion: rather than spending more money on acquisitions (such those that led to Logic, Final Cut and Shake), the big A could start a venture capital fund that would help Mac software startups, and established vendors looking to port to the Mac, with seed money to get products off the ground and out the doors.Hesseldahl points to other tech giants that run their own VC operations, among them Intel, Qualcomm and Motorola. Perhaps it is time for AAPL (back up to $87/share at today's close, erasing a good chunk of Tuesday's losses) to turn some of that spare change into "changing the world, one software company at a time." [via The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs]
PS3 hurts Sony profits, but less than expected
Yesterday's Bloomberg prediction that the PS3 would drag down Sony profits 50 percent turned out to be a little lofty. While the company's games division did show a withering 54.2 billion yen (about $446 million) loss for the quarter ending Dec. 31 (down from a 67.8 billion yen/$558 million profit in 2005), strong sales of Bravia TVs and other Sony electronics meant the company as a whole showed only a modest five percent decrease in profits for the quarter, year over year. Sony blamed the weak game unit performance on the massive costs associated with rolling out the PS3 and selling it at a substantial loss. Slowing sales for the PSP also hurt the bottom line, Sony said. Despite the bad news, the company actually raised their profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31. Still, unless Sony can find another quick-selling "champion product" along the lines of the PS2, Sony's bottom line may be continuing in this same direction for a while.
50-percent of your iPhone purchase to pad Apple's wallet?
Sure, LG's KE850 Prada handset will set users back a cool $778, and the Google Switch just might pop in to make things a bit more interesting, but a recent research report has unveiled that Apple's sure-to-be-sold-out iPhone is a lean, mean, profit-generating machine nonetheless. While Apple's well-known for selling its iPods (and to a lesser extent, its Macs) for much, much more than it cost to manufacture, even we're a bit taken aback at how hard those corporate buyers must be workin' those suppliers on this one. According to iSuppli (no affiliation with Apple, of course), the 4GB iPhone will yield a "49.3 percent profit margin on each unit sold at the $499 retail price," while the 8GB rendition will kick back a 46.9-percent margin. You heard right, they're supposing the $499 mobile only costs Apple $245.83 to produce, while the 8GB flavor demands just $264.85. Of course, this isn't the first time a hot-selling product has been broken down by the numbers to prove just how ripped off we're all getting (if these numbers are to be trusted, that is) -- but hey, unless you've got the means to buy capacitors and LCD touchscreens by the boatload, you're probably stuck paying exactly what they ask. Plus if all this sudden competition gets a bit too heated, don't think Apple doesn't have any room to introduce a (highly desired) price drop.
Cha-Ching presentation at the Apple Store
Juan Alvarez, developer and CEO at Midnight Apps, gave a CocoaHeads presentation at the Apple Store Thursday night of the new 0.5 version of Cha-Ching, his slick money app that brings financial management out of the stone ages with the beauty of Mac OS X and Cocoa. While Cha-Ching is still in a half-1.0 beta status, it's a pretty impressive app powered by some slick innovation. Read on for some sexy screenshots and feature highlights of this latest version.
