Live News from Activision-Blizzard’s Quarterly Conference Call
Activision-Blizzard has now concluded its quarterly financial conference call for Q4 2008. Check out the myriad of announcements below.
Emphasis is our own.
CEO and President Bobby Kotick
- Company revenues up over 20% in calendar 2008
- $150m in merger integration and cost-savings with Blizzard
- Our “proven franchises” provide “an unparalleled competitive advantage”
- Working on a 26% operating margin
- Ended 2008 with $3 billion in cash and investments and no debt
- Repurchased 13 million shares of stock
- “Subscription based business model allows us to capitalize on industry growth”
- “In 2008, we had four of the top-10 best-selling games worldwide for the year”
CFO Thomas Tippl
- Titles in the World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Guitar Hero franchises among the best selling titles of all time
- “Increase in online games provides ancillary revenue opportunities”
- Guitar World Tour outsold competition (Rock Band) 2:1 in December
- Guitar World Tour shipped more SKUs in more territories at a higher price-point than last year
- Entering 2009 with “reasonably prudent approach”
- Next Bond gaming coming in 2010; pushed to avoid competition with new Call of Duty
- Three new IP in development
President and CEO of Activision Publishing Mike Griffith
- Dec. 31 2008: Current-gen consoles, including handhelds, install base reaches 159 million units (69% increase year over year)
- Activision anticipates console sales to be up 8 million units for PS3 and Xbox 360 16 million units in 2009. Handhelds to grow in excess of 21 million units
- Industry software market grew 20% in 2008; holiday quarter saw 6% growth
- 2009 software sales increases anticipated to be in single digits
- “As you know, we’ve been cautious with developing new IP”
- DJ Hero launching in 2009
- One new IP in racing genre and one new IP in shooter genre launching this year
- 37 million Guitar Hero songs downloaded to date
- New Call of Duty, Singularity, Prototype, new Tony Hawk, all coming in 2009
- New Bizarre racing title coming Q4 2009; completely new IP
- Music games represent 11% of software market; up 68% in 2008
- Guitar Hero install base is 32 million and 4x that of Rock Band
- “Many genres of music we’ve not yet tapped, but consumers are very interested in”
- Standalone drums for Guitar Hero World Tour releasing later this month
- Expecting extremely strong sales for its movie tie-in properties this quarter: X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Ice Age 3
- Coming this quarter: new Guitar Hero for the DS and Guitar Hero Greatest Hits coming to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii
- Guitar Hero Greatest Hits: favorite songs from Guitar Hero 1 through Guitar Hero 3 remade with Guitar Hero World Tour’s full instrument set
- It’s official: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (coming quarter after next)
- New Tony Hawk: “Broadening the appeal of skateboarding beyond the core”
- New Wolfenstein expected this summer
- Raven’s Singularity coming next quarter as well
More and Expanded Announcements (via Press Release)
- Activision Blizzard had four top 10-best selling PC titles in dollars in North America and Europe for the calendar year
- In North America, Activision Blizzard was the #1 third-party console and handheld software publisher in dollars for the calendar year
- For the calendar year, Activision Blizzard had the #1 U.S. best-selling title in dollars on the Nintendo DS, Guitar Hero On Tour
- For the December quarter, Activision Blizzard was the #1 console, handheld and PC publisher in the U.S. and Europe
- During the December quarter, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock became the first video game ever to surpass $1 billion in sales from a single title
- For the December quarter, Activision Blizzard had the #1 and #2 best-selling console titles, Guitar Hero World Tour and Call of Duty: World at War respectively, in dollars in North America and Europe
- On December 23, 2008 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced that World of Warcraft its award-winning subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, is now played by more than 11.5 million subscribers worldwide