Second Quarter Results Released

Electronic Arts has announced its second quarter results for the 2009 fiscal year. Despite a significant rise in net revenue to $894 million, the company ended the quarter September 30 with a $310 million loss. In conjunction with this, there will be a 6% reduction in staffing, which translates to approximately 500 people across the company. On a positive note, Madden 2009 sold nearly 5 million copies, Spore hit 2 million and EA Mythic's new Warhammer Online has nearly a million active subscribers. More recently, Dead Space & Red Alert 3 have begun shipping. Among the interesting notes in the guts of the release - PC sales rose to $88 million to compare with $47 million for mobile phone games. If current growth rates could be sustained, wireless phone revenue could surpass the PC side in about two years. Two of the last three Wing Commander game releases were for portable systems, and a cellular WC would be neato.

“Considering the slow down at retail we’ve seen in October, we are cautious in the short term,” said John Riccitiello, Chief Executive Officer. “Longer term, we are very bullish on the game sector overall and on EA in particular. The industry is growing double-digits on the strength of three new game consoles and increases in the number of homes with broadband internet connections. EA is well positioned to benefit from these technology drivers due to the strength of our creative studios and our broad collection of game properties--from The Sims, to Spore and Madden NFL, to Warhammer Online.”

Making the Games: Shadow Force Sketches

More Shadow Force material right out of the gate - these seven sketches represent six of the game's mercenary characters. From left to right: Furie, Hardware, Priest, Prime, Turk and Silver (the last two). If you happen to be at work this weekend then you shouldn't click on that final sketch -- it's rated 'M'. Everyone else would be advised to view it as quickly as possible, though.

Thanks to Captain Johnny for both archiving and providing this material!