Western Publishers are struggling

[shio]

naznatips said:

Ari_Gold said:
@ Montana... EA's big yearly franchises grew old ( Medal of Honor, Battlefield, Burnout, Need for Speed), hence they need to make original IPS, most of them have been pretty good actually, i loved skate, mirror edge and dead space. Activision got lucky with Guitar Hero and Call of Duty 4. But they'll eventually go the way EA is currently going, and start to make new IPs.

New EA > Old EA

 

The console market is now all but meaningless to Activision.  In their last quarter their financials were 58% of their profit was from PC alone (42% of that from WoW, 16% from other sales). Followed by 13% on Wii, 10% on DS, and PS3 and 360 fighting over the last pathetic little 19%.  If you think either of those consoles mean jack in this industry anymore you are nuts.  PS3 and 360 could drop dead tomorrow and it wouldn't affect Activision much at all.  EA, however, would instantly go out of business.  EA will die long before Activision has to change anything.

This. It's not surprising that EA is more and more pushing PC support and caring less about HD consoles. EA is making a HUGE comeback on PC:

- Spore (2 millions in first 3 weeks, "The Sims" sales level), and a "looks awesome" expansion releasing in 2009

- Warhammer Online (over 1 million sales in it's debut month, best MMO launch since WoW)

- Battlefield Heroes (new take on the series, with Free-to-Play model + microtransactions)

- Revamp of all EA Sports titles for PC in 2009, which will take advantage of the PC's strengths with new specific features

- Battleforge, coming 2009, looks amazing and also is microtransactions-based

- Star Wars MMO, likely Free-to-Play with transactions so that it doesn't clash with Warhammer Online business model

- The Sims 3, proven +10 millions seller on PC

I think I'm forgetting some things more.

No doubt that EA knows where the big bucks are..... PC.