Atari and THQ Show Mixed Financials, Game Details

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."

Comments

That Epic deal...

[KDR_11k]

What did Atari not like about Epic's deal? Did Epic want as much time as they needed to make the game and Atari wanted them to throw out half-finished games instead? Did Epic want a share of the profits? I mean, it's the same guy who claimed that Enter The Matrix shouldn't pay extra (his comment on the WB "higher royalities for bad games" thing, he didn't have to pay, but if WB had that system in place earlier he would have had to) for brand damage since it sold really well (I'd call that "even more damage").