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Atari and THQ Show Mixed Financials, Game Details

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the mo'-money-mo'-money-mo'-money dept.

An anonymous reader writes "GameMethod reports that for the fiscal 2004 first quarter, Atari announced that net revenues and income were down from last fiscal year, but still positive. Strong sales of [the somewhat controversial] Driv3r for both PlayStation 2 and Xbox are being cited as the main success, but the dip in comparative figures is being attributed to last year's release of Enter the Matrix, Atari's commercially successful (over 5 million units sold), yet critically jeered game. [Atari's Bruno Bonnell commented on the loss of the Unreal license that Epic's proposed deal was 'not acceptable from a profit point of view for our strategy.'] On the flip side, despite a net loss of $3.9 million for the fiscal first quarter of 2005, THQ announced a positive outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year. Full Spectrum Warrior for Xbox drove sales for the quarter, ranking as the top selling Xbox game and the second best selling title for the month of June."

2 of 10 comments (clear)

  1. Bruno's Dreamland... by TheSwink · · Score: 5, Informative
    Um, excuse me? Five million copies of Enter the Matrix sold? According to whom? I'd love to see some credible statistics for this. The last figure I'd heard was two million and even that, to put it lightly, strained credibility . Even then there was some fine print about 'units shipped' which any retailer will tell you has very little to with units sold.

    To put that in perspective:

    Super Mario 64 - 5.94
    Grand Theft Auto 3 - 5.35 (million copies sold)
    Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - 2.63
    Metal Gear Solid - 2.43
    Enter the Matrix - 5 million(?)

    Which one of these things...is not like the others? Admittedly these numbers are US sales, perhaps Enter the Matrix sold these ridiculous millions of copies in Europe and Asia. Again, though, that seems somewhat implausible.

    Also, as anyone with any sort of business acumen will tell you, units sold speaks very little about net profit. And let's not forget that Shiny reportedly paid $10 million for the Matrix license. What's that smell? Ah...fresh books. Delish.

    I guess my only real reason for writing this is that I find Bonell to be somewhat unsavory and feel somewhat unnerved by the possibility that anyone takes him or his company at their word. He strikes me as something of a con man. I don't like that he bought and is now wearing Atari's rough-sewn skin as a branding rain-slicker and I don't like his comments about the future of gaming what games are supposed to be:
    http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.n ytimes.com/2003/12/21/magazine/21GAMES.html
    For an excellent summation of why Bonnell's comments are a proverbial avalanche of bullshit:
    http://www.costik.com/weblog/2003_12_01_blogchive. html

    Anyhow, the only point of that rather shallow tirade was that I sincerely hope no burgeoning game designers are being led astray by the parade of delusion that is Infogrames' press releases.

    By the way, the source on those statistics is http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-USPlatinum.shtml

    1. Re:Bruno's Dreamland... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      Which one of these things...is not like the others?
      Well, Enter the Matrix is, because it was on four major platforms (PS2, Xbox, GC, PC). The rest of your numbers are for one game on one platform. Hell, the chart you quoted said Enter the Matrix sold ~1.2 million copies in the US, on the PS2.
      ...I sincerely hope no burgeoning game designers are being led astray by the parade of delusion that is Infogrames' press releases.
      I hope people will take ALL press releases with a grain of salt.