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Breakfast Topic: Ready for Season 4?
Season 4 of the WoW arena is upon us. In roughly 24 hours, the mad dash to a rating of 2200 will begin. My question for all of you today is... are you ready for it?A lot of my friends who focus on PvP already have their compositions figured out, their team names ready, and a full bank of honor and arena points stored and ready to spend. Even if you aren't the arena type, Tuesday can mean good things for you. What does Season 4 do for you if you don't PvP? Gold, of course! Profit, profit, profit. With the influx of gear into peoples' hands starting Tuesday, gems and enchanting materials are going to spike in price for awhile. I imagine epic gems will feel this especially, as this is essentially the best gear available to PvPers before Wrath of the Lich King. They'll want to make the most of it.So whether you play for PvP or you play for Profit, tomorrow means good things. Are you ready for it? Have you done anything to prepare? Do you go through any start-of-the-season rituals for good luck? Burning a Druid-shaped wickerman, perhaps?
Majesco sales drop in second quarter, re-confirms DS focus
Publisher Majesco has returned from the kitchen with a piping hot plate of second quarter results. However, unlike the previous quarter's delectably sweet increases in both sales and profits, the company's second course of financials proved to be much less appetizing. For the period, Majesco announced second quarter sales of $12.8 million, down from last year's $14.6 million as well as the previous quarter's $18.7 million. Much of this decline, admits Majesco, can be blamed on the lack of key releases from company during the period, particularly from cash cows Cooking Mama and Bust-a-Move, both of which were key ingredients in Majesco's success during 2007's second quarter. However, even with a lighter wallet, the company noted that it expects to report between $53 and $58 million in revenue for fiscal 2008. The company also took the opportunity to blow kisses at Nintendo, confirming that of its upcoming lineup this year some 59 percent will be released for the DS with the remainder "almost entirely" coming to the Wii. Jeeze, guys, get a room.
Anti-Aliased: It will all be fine in ten minutes
Back in the day when a 500 Mhz processor was fast, we were lulled into these weird online universes with multitudes of golden tongued promises. "Play online with thousands of others!", "Make a hero and save detailed and vast worlds!", and, my favorite, "Live in an persistent universe where your actions will have long lasting effects!"Certainly, two of those promises have come true. Our worlds are traveled by thousands upon thousands of users daily, and the characters we have created are truly the stuff of legends who have saved these vast worlds countless times. But the one thing that has still eluded us all this time... persistence.The funny thing is, it's not because we can't program or realize persistence in our games. We have the technology and expertise to do that just fine. We don't have persistence because persistence isn't profitable.
Insider Trader: The complete final stretch
For months now, Insider Trader has been diligently planning out routes to maximize your profession skills in ways that are efficient, profitable, and quick. Each week, you've stepped up and added your comments, thoughts, and professional secrets so that we can all benefit. I've aimed to replace the boredom, tedium, frustration and bankruptcy that has been the experience of many crafters, with balance, profit, knowledge, and even (gasp) fun.Now, as we round out the series, let's take a look through the guides that, together with their comments sections, will send you on a straightaway to 375.
How much is an iTunes download worth?
How much is an iTunes download worth? About 70 cents, if conventional wisdom is correct. That's the commonly quoted number for the iTunes money that gets passed back to the record labels. And according to the New York Times today, the record labels are angling for more. They argue that broadband music sales through the mobile iTunes store somehow should bring them a greater profit than sales through the standard iTS, pointing to industry practice for ringtone and ringback sales. I don't quite understand their reasoning. I think most phone-based ringtone sales are outrageously overpriced. Increased sales volumes will benefit the labels even at the current wholesale prices. Ah well, another example of Underwear Gnome economics in action. %Poll-14432%
Making/Money: Flawed by Design
Last week your intrepid blogger was caught up in the other kind of beta testing - a Statistics final. Yeah, that was a bad pun. Oh well. Back to the money talk!In the last column, we discussed value chains and how, in World of Warcraft, they work when dealing with NPCs but not the auction house. Today we are looking at another game and how it deals with value chains to ensure that they do not work when crafting by NPC purchases/sales alone.Lord of the Rings Online offers players vocations - sets of three linked professions that cannot be chosen by themselves. In any given vocation, there is usually one "useful" gathering profession which supports one of the craft professions in the set and another, unsupported, profession. In other words, vocations are structured to enforce cooperation and trade between players by ensuring that no one can gather all the raw materials they will require to level their craft. But that doesn't mean that the supported profession is good to go from the start.
Activision enjoyed $2.9 billion in sales last fiscal year
Activision had itself a very good fiscal year '08 with record revenues and its 16th year of consecutive growth. GameDaily reports the publisher's revenues hit $2.9 billion, with net income growing from $85.8 million in FY07 to $344.9 million this past year. Amazingly, the fourth quarter of FY08, which was between January and March of this year, saw no new titles released according to the publisher and still raked in $602.5 million in sales and $44.2 million in profits.Activision has many titles to thank for its banner year, including the billion dollar franchises, Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. The publisher grew its market share from 7.2% to 17.3% and says it expects new revenues this year of $2.75 billion; that figure does not include the merger with Vivendi Games, which will create the behemoth Activision Blizzard. Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick, says the merger is still on track and the company plans to make bagiggles of cash for its stockholders in the coming year.
Sony's game division to post smaller losses
Are things finally looking up for the Japanese electronics giant? Sony, plagued by a slowing US economy and weakening US dollar, has struggled to meet its financial targets. However, things aren't all gloom and doom. A report by the Nikkei (via Reuters) shows that Sony's video game division is starting to turn around. The fiscal year, ending in March 2007, was a disastrous affair for the company, with an operating loss of 232 billion yen. The high cost of PS3 production and development bled money from the department.However, due to improving sales and smaller manufacturing costs, Sony's game division will see its operating loss shrink by 100 billion yen in its March 2008 fiscal year. While that means it will still have lost 132 billion yen, it's certainly a turnaround from the previous year. Overall profitability of Sony has improved thanks to the game division's smaller losses.PlayStation, once the leading brand of video games, has been struggling since the launch of the PS3. In the latest console generation, Nintendo has been posting incredible profits (much to the happiness of investors). Microsoft's game division has historically posted loss after loss, but has finally started to become profitable in recent months.
Verizon follows AT&T on the black ink trail
It looks like it's a surprisingly good time to be a behemoth US carrier, with both AT&T and Verizon reporting some pretty aggressive profits in the first quarter of 2008 in the face of a flagging economy. Many of Verizon's results closely mirror AT&T's actually, with data revenue absolutely destroying the numbers from a year ago -- up 48.9 percent year over year, in Big Red's case. As we can see from Verizon's own documentation here, they're tooting their horn against their arch-nemesis with more net adds, a slightly better ARPU, lower churn, and lower cost per customer, with service revenue and total subs (of course) being AT&T's big wins. Whether the momentum can be kept up through a challenging '08 remains to be seen, but it's a solid start for the nation's number two. Hit the gallery below for a big shot of Verizon's message to employees regarding the results.[Thanks, anonymous tipster]%Gallery-21818%
Yowza: Toshiba's net profits plunge 95% thanks to HD DVD, flash prices
A year ago today Toshiba was announcing ¥26.17 billion in profits for the quarter. Today, just ¥1.25 billion or about $12 million. In addition to the $580 million hit on account of its withdrawal from HD DVD, Toshiba also saw a swift decline in flash memory prices. While bad news for Toshiba on all accounts, we consumers are basking in a market dominated by a single high-def optical disc standard and cheap NAND and DRAM pricing. Sorry Tosh, but you won't find any tears around here.
Nintendo rolling in money as Wii nears 25 million units
Nintendo hasn't just been sitting prettily on its laurels these past twelve months. Nope, the Kyoto firm has kept itself occupied by generating giant wads of filthy lucre, in readiness for when it takes over the world with Satoru Iwata as our new supreme overlord, and Shiggy his ruthless, iron-fisted deputy. Or something.The company has released details of its full year results for the period ended March 31st, 2008, and guess what? Nintendo is rich. Profits shot up by 47.7 percent, while sales rose by 73 percent (to ¥1.67 trillion, or $16.1bn).Not only that, but the Wii sold 18.61 million consoles in the last fiscal year, bringing it to a lifetime total of 24.45 million units (and, as we're now in late-April, we can safely presume that that figure has passed the landmark total of 25 million). On the software front, the console now has 26 million-sellers (up from five last year), 1.8m Japanese consumers risked their hamstrings by picking up Wii Fit, and Brawl sold 4.85 million units in the U.S. and Japan (and might even sell a few more when it launches in Europe this June).
2007 worldwide financial results: Nintendo still rich
Nintendo has announced their financial results for the full fiscal year 2007, and it's good news all around for people who make money from sales of Nintendo products. Total sales rose a remarkable 73%, up to 1.67 trillion yen ($16.1 billion). Profits are up 47.7 percent from last year, up to 257.3 billion yen ($2.5 billion)Sales were up by 73.0 percent over the last twelve months to a total of ¥1.67 trillion ($16.1bn), and profits up 47.7 percent to ¥257.3 billion ($2.5bn). On the DS front, the little handheld sold another 30.31 million units, giving it a ridiculous total worldwide sales count of 70.6 million. Big sellers in software include both Pokemans (9.56 million in FY 2007, total 14.77 million) and, of course, the Brain Ages (11.81 million, total 23.81 million). There are now 57 million-selling games (and non-games) on the DS.Nintendo has predicted only a 7.8 percent increase in sales for the new fiscal year, to 1.8 trillion yen. They cite the falling dollar, but really, they should be conservative in their estimate because how much more could Nintendo's sales go up?
Qualcomm rakes in more quarterly cash than it did a year ago
The royalty, lawsuit, and chipset machine better known as Qualcomm has gone public with its digits for the second quarter of fiscal 2008, and to sum things up, it's all looking pretty rosy. At $2.61 billion, revenue was up a solid 17 percent year over year -- up 7 from the previous quarter -- and income totaled $766 million, up 6 percent year over year. That works out to 47 cents worth of diluted earnings per share, a 9 percent improvement over the same period a year ago. The MediaFLO division still isn't in the black, though, with its Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives parent reporting a loss of 2 cents per share and $76 million worth of operating expenses in the quarter, "primarily related" to the mobile TV unit. Guess there's probably a little pressure for the AT&T launch to go smoothly, swiftly, and profitably, eh? [Warning: PDF link][Via mocoNews]
Nintendo continues cash infusion, record sales and profits in FY08
Nintendo announced today that it saw a 73% increase in sales this past year and profits of over $4.77 billion, which is a 115% increase over last year. It appears Nintendo forecasted conservatively and is going to need a bigger money bin. The company also states it plans to ship 25 million Wii consoles to retailers across the globe in FY09, approximately the same amount it shipped in FY08, which ended March 31. If Nintendo continues its Wii sales rampage, that means by April of 2009 there could be 50 million Wii consoles in homes.The Nintendo DS isn't doing badly either, with 70.6 million units sold, and expected shipments of another 28 million units this fiscal year. Nintendo reveals that the global tie ratio for software on Wii is 6.07, while the DS enjoys a 5.24. The company expects an 8.8% operating profit increase in FY09 to $5.14 billion -- that's probably being conservative, again.[Via GameDaily]
AT&T posts killer first quarter, data growth "robust"
Economic downturn and Sprint woes be damned, because AT&T's not hearin' a bit of it. The company's wireless unit -- which also happens to be the largest carrier in the country -- announced that it put up some serious numbers in the first quarter of 2008, growing revenue 18.3 percent year over year for a grand total of $11.8 billion. It tacked on 1.3 million new subscribers in the quarter, an 8.7 percent improvement in net gain over the same period in 2007, and grew ARPU by 2 percent in that time. Perhaps most eye-widening, though, is the fact that wireless data revenue grew a boggling 57.3 percent over the last year, thanks in part to the 620 million and 44 billion multimedia and text messages sent in the three-month span, respectively. Needless to say, the wireless division's looking just a little more... shall we say, "dynamic" than the wireline group at the moment, as recent job moves would indicate.[Via mocoNews]
Nokia outs first quarter earnings, market share slips just a bit
Can't win 'em all, we suppose. After a positively stellar fourth quarter of 2007 that saw Nokia grab a mind-boggling 40 percent of the world's mobile market share, the number one manufacturer slipped a smidge in the first quarter of this year, dropping down to 39 percent globally. That news is just one tidbit of a very interesting report that sees Nokia's year-over-year performance improve by a wide margin, while at the same time warning that the value of its mobile business is expected to decline versus 2007 thanks largely to the weak US dollar and a global economy that's been putting on the brakes as of late. Also of note is CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo's comment that the company will have no "major new products" shipping in the second quarter, likely putting to rest any hopes that we'd see the N78 out before July -- unless the guy doesn't consider the N78 a major new product, which we think would be a pretty misguided belief. Nokia also notes here that it still expects to grow its market share overall in 2008 -- despite the 1 percent decline this quarter -- so any other players out there gunning at nabbing a piece of that profitable pie are going to have to keep the pressure on, it seems.
RIM posts blockbuster fourth quarter
Global economic meltdown be damned! RIM's humming right along, apparently, reporting a killer fourth quarter with $412.5 million in profit, beating its own estimates and netting more than double the amount from the same period a year prior. Jim Balsillie himself chimed in on the results, saying that the company "did not see any evidence of slowdown in our enterprise business" -- amazing, considering that a stagnating job market would seem to lead to smaller BlackBerry budgets. Perhaps even more impressive, though, is that RIM is predicting first quarter earnings that'll significantly outpace analyst estimates in the face of stiff competition that's getting ever stiffer in RIM's own enterprise turf and an economy that's showing no sign of turning around any time soon. Don't suppose they could divert some of those fat profits to shoring up shaky servers, hmm?[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
TiVo beats analysts' estimates in Q4, still loses money
TiVo's been riding the proverbial wire for years now, and while there was some bright news from the Alviso-based firm's Q4 report, things still aren't looking too peachy on the whole. During the outfit's Q4, it managed to beat analysts' estimates with a loss of "just" $6.4 million "as expenses fell and sales of older-model units were better than expected." Reportedly, the loss equaled 6 cents per share -- much better than the expected loss of 11 cents per share. According to Chief Executive Tom Rogers, the year it just closed was its "best annual performance in its history," but when that performance was losing $31.4 million, we don't even want to think about a poor year. Still, Mr. Rogers assured investors that its newfangled partnerships with cable and satellite TV providers would help "narrow the gap toward profitability," but we still don't see poor TiVo rising from the depths just yet.
Investment of $1 billion+ wouldn't dethrone WoW, exec says
We all know that World of Warcraft is the big daddy on the MMO block. Hell, with the amount of money Blizzard is raking in, World of Warcraft is the big daddy on the gaming block. And what's more, it's still growing. According a report, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick stated in an investor meeting that his company had done extensive research on the MMO category, and came to the conclusion that even a game bolstered by an initial investment of $500 million to $1 billion would still probably have a hell of a time competing in the same space as the Blizzard juggernaut. This likely came as part of their research prior to the massive merger with Vivendi Universal late last year.Kotick points to the relative failures of big companies like Microsoft in trying to develop a competitive product as proof in the pudding. Even companies with decades-long track records of extracting money from lose-lose situations don't stand to gain much from trying to directly compete in the same space. For his part, Kotick believes it's the ingenuity of the guys at Blizzard that is really the deciding factor. Since no amount of money is liable to recreate the success of Blizzard, they simply found the prospect of buying them out more amenable. If you're wondering why it seems like so many MMO development houses are scaling down their products to make them more niche oriented, this is why. Throwing money, even a billion dollars, into a competition with World of Warcraft is only likely to end in tears.
GDC08: Bigger is not always better
One good thing about being in such a net-savvy industry is that when you miss something, like the GDC presentation by NetDevil's Scott Brown and Hermann Peterscheck, somebody will inevitably put the powerpoint online for everybody to see. The NetDevil guys, currently working on Jumpgate Evolution and LEGO Universe, are well-known for their honesty and candor. So when they lay out their model for the future of the MMO industry, we're inclined to listen to them. Their premise is that the exponential growth that has been observed by many parties within the MMO space may in fact be somewhat illusory. While revenues for the industry as a whole continue to sky-rocket, the money and subscription numbers continue to be concentrated in only a few, extremely successful games.Take one look at all the canceled titles and commercial failures that litter the landscape. They have a point. The advice that they lay out for burgeoning developers is to forgo huge teams, shiny graphics, fancy rec-rooms, and other accoutremonts for a lean team, lower minimum spec, sensible work conditions, and a realistic development timetable that won't lead to costly delays. Perhaps most importantly, they say that trying to take on the big boys with a $4 million budget is tantamount to suicide. Smaller development teams can actually make more money than big budget titles in the long-run if they find their niche and stick to it. Or as one slide says, "A little greatness is always better than a lot of mediocrity."%Gallery-16989%
