PS3 Game Sales Insert Foot in Kotick’s Mouth
Over the past year, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, has frightened and angered many gamers, particularly PS3 fans. A few months ago, before the September price cut, he publicly threatened (whether his words had substance is another story) Sony to cut the price of the PS3, or Activision would cut support from the overpriced behemoth.
Even more recently, PC gamers are furious that Modern Warfare 2, Activision’s flagship title, is priced $10 more than regularly priced PC games. That, and custom servers, a cornerstone for gaming communities, would not be in Modern Warfare 2.
Many gamers have taken action into their own hands, they have created countless online petitions (although one, created by the announcement of no custom servers for the PC version, reached well over 150,000 votes) and boycotts, never doing any coordinated damage. Well, Activision’s recent financial report shows that even disgruntled gamers buy games.
PS3 sales represented 10% of Activision’s Q3 results, bringing in $73 million. This fell just short of the Xbox 360, which accounted for 15%, totaling $103 million. Compare these numbers to last year, when the PS3, and PS2 each accounted for 9% of Activision’s Q3 numbers. That year, the Xbox 360 took 11%.
All in all, Activision saw a net revenue of $703 million, so far this year. With the impending release of Modern Warfare 2-one of the year’s biggest games- they have raised their projections to a staggering $1.3 billion income for their financial year.
Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard had this to say on the numbers:
Our performance was driven by positive audience response to Activision Publishing’s Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero® and Call of Duty® franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment®’s World of Warcraft®. Year to date through September 30, the Guitar Hero franchise was the #1 best-selling third-party franchise in North America and Europe. For the month of September, sales of music games in the U.S. increased 72% in dollars year over year, which demonstrates the sustained interest in this new and important game category.
During the quarter, we continued to see strong sales for Call of Duty World at War™ and associated map packs, which year to date have sold more than seven and half million units. Despite a challenging overall software market, the company grew its quarterly U.S. share by 3.1 points over the previous year to 13.3%. This success is the result of our focus on delivering the highest game quality and the best entertainment experiences possible for our consumers.
“We believe we have the industry’s strongest holiday release schedule which includes Bakugan Battle Brawlers™, Band Hero, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® 2, DJ Hero and Tony Hawk®: RIDE™. We are committed to making great games and our fall releases deliver against this more than ever before.
“As of today, our calendar 2009 financial outlook remains unchanged, and we still expect to deliver record non-GAAP operating margins based on the strength of the Call of Duty franchise and high consumer anticipation for Modern Warfare 2, which we project could be the largest entertainment launch of the year. Even though there is a great deal of economic uncertainty in the marketplace and the consumer risks around the holiday season are high, we believe that our strong balance sheet and solid cash position, coupled with our leading franchises, operational capabilities and broad global reach will enable us to take advantage of the long-term opportunities afforded by our industry.”
[Source]
15 Responses to “PS3 Game Sales Insert Foot in Kotick’s Mouth”
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November 6th, 2009 at 9:00 PM
Kotick drives me crazy.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:15 PM
This is the problem in a nutshell. It is very difficult to get a like minded group of people to band together and produce a result. A boycott is perfect; unfortunately, there is no way to perform a meaningful one anymore, and these large companies know it. Microsoft puts out a faulty operating system: everyone still buys it. Gas goes above $4.00 a gallon: people still buy it. EA recycles Madden over and over again ad nauseum: the masses still continue to buy it every year. These companies understand one thing, and one thing only: the bottom line. Dollars and cents. Take Socom for another example: the word was out on the street due to the beta – “This game sucks” Did it matter? Nope. “Hardcore” Socom players bought it up. I own every other Socom game, so I don’t know how hardcore you can be, but I played the beta, and I didn’t waste my money. Don’t like the price of MW2? Don’t like the lack of custom servers? Don’t like EA’s business practices? Don’t like Kotick’s anti-Sony rants? DONT BUY THE GAME! Get your friends and relatives not to buy the game. Tell them to spread the word. That’s how consumers can get quality, affordable products with the amenities they want. Just ask GM and Chrysler.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:26 PM
I vote with my wallet….I don’t buy their products. No big deal to me anyway I already have too many games to play.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:03 PM
I hate Activision, CoD and GH are overrated anyway
November 6th, 2009 at 10:33 PM
Lawsuit Hero’s nothing but bad press, Activisions has the worst image in the gaming industry..
His life-goal with Activision..”was to take all the fun out of making video games.” Way to go, asshole. You’re not SUPPOSED to say that shit in public. When the whole drama broke loose when he demand a price cut, Sony’s response was “hes just making noise” which means “hes just talking shit“. He might be, but that shows his mentality.
On a side note….I will admit hes got a nice set of teeth.
November 7th, 2009 at 12:08 AM
How the hell are they listing Bakugan as a part of their strong lineup? Plus GH games are getting rated to shit anyway. The only reason why Activision has ANY popularity is because of the CoD games and the old Tony Hawk franchise.
Ultimate Alliance is selling from the Marvel name not the Activision name. Guitar Hero was a redoctane game and was then aquired. It’s popularity has nothing to do with Activision. The series has declined just as fast as it builds up. For every Guitar Hero 5 there are 3 Guitar Hero Band Pimpage games rushed together.
The point of this article is. “Most people who buy games don’t give a damn about them”
This includes the mom playing wii fit, the dad buying Madden every year.
The hardcore are the minority so the ONLY say we have on gaming is PSN titles. PSN titles built by small companies is all the hope we have of pursuading them.
November 7th, 2009 at 12:48 AM
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was cocky enough to take credit for the PS3 price drop
November 7th, 2009 at 12:58 AM
Those numbers pretty much lead to one conclusion: World of Warcraft is the equivalent of a money printing machine. If the PS3 is 10% and the XBox360 is 15%, what on Earth do they have left to make up the the other 75%? Do they really sell that many PC games other than WoW? I’m pretty sure if they did people wouldn’t be screaming that PC gaming is dead…
So congrats Bobby; you managed to make your company successful by purchasing a company that actually *was* successful. This is the equivalent of me claiming I’m a great chef because I bought good food at a fancy restaurant.
November 7th, 2009 at 2:36 AM
I’m with Robotron. I don’t even remember the last time I bought anything from Activision.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:22 AM
Last Activision game I bought was Prototype (which was a let down for me) and even that I traded a few games in against.
There’s no way I’m buying MW2 though, was interested in getting it for PC but they’ve killed MW2 for PC.
I’m voting with my wallet and won’t be buying anything with the Activision name on it until there’s something I deem to be worth buying.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:41 AM
I wont buy any game that doesnt have its very own dedicated servers- and the COD games unfortunately fall into this category!
MW2 was brilliant when it first came out, but it gradually got worse and worse online, to the point that my niece would make animation flip books with more frames per second! Plus, since playing the ultra hardcore and “realistic” Killzone2, COD games seem more n more arcade like everytime i look at them.
Activision are complete tossers, and i will never buy another game by them again. Theyre always ports from the 360 too, so they never utilise the full potential of PS3, and yet they have the cheek to put £10/$10 extra on the price of MW2. Id love to smack the pearly whites out of that grinning egotists mouth, and watch him choke on them!
November 7th, 2009 at 9:38 AM
Last game I bought from these guys was GH3. That will be the very last game I buy from them unless they chance their attitudes. Oh, and I wasn’t buying MW2 in the first place.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:50 AM
i really can’t stand bobby kotick. He’s a greedy little obnoxious pig which is why i count my blessings i’m christian which dosen’t sound like it means much but put in the fact that dear ol’ bobby has broken the sin of greed so many times that we could change greed to the word Kotick that means i can sleep easy with the fault of bobby kotick burning in the enternal flames of hell.
Who says they want to take all the fun out of video games? That’s like going on TV and saying your going to try your best to be racist whenever possibly. I think buying blizzard has made him think he has a good games company which is why he’s saying stuff like this but one day he’s going to slip up and i can’t wait for that day becasue on that day i’ll persernally make sure i get a plane over to america just so i can find bobby walk up to him and burst out into fits of laughter then ask where infinity ward’s recruitement center is.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:06 PM
Bobby KoDICK, that is all.
January 11th, 2010 at 10:46 AM
[...] out of making video games. He even at one point threatened to stop supporting Sony, even though the PS3 was one of the highest contributors to his money stack. None of this mattered, as the man still made plenty of money, but someone should really teach the [...]