Its not that they are losing money per say its that the return is not worth it. This is why they have larger revenue and less profit. if they sold half this amount on the wii they would have the same profit at least, if not more. Plus, with all the wii software that sold and the lack of new games, they would have had a good market.

The fact of the matter is the financials say it all. When you have record revenue and larger losses what does that say? It can only mean costs are astronomical, which is what we have heard from multiple devs in multiple interviews and articles. it is not a sustainable business model.

Lastly, for all those saying the wii games bombed, the only ones that did were the all play ones. Now tell me this, what sports fan is going to buy that shit? Take that name off and I bet sales go up. Bloom Blox did good and again, Rockband two would have made tons more profit for them if they only released it on time. So really its not the wii, its bullshit marketing and fund allocation.

Edit: and no, all that loss is not due to ps360. That is restructuring. But, the loss per share AFTER the restructuring is based on ps360 and shit wii marketing. And since they made more rev this year than last (after restructuring), it speaks for itself

No, we're acting like their current business model is terrible. That includes not creating profitable products.

Where does it say that? At the beginning of the reuters article it said they had an operating profit: "* Oper profit 56 cts/shr vs Wall Street view 88 cts/shr"

here is the report.

http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?FilingID=6377483-33970-38645&type=sect&dcn=0001193125-09-017566

edit: actually looks like 41 mil

One of EA's biggest enemies was marketing costs. There were nearly endless commercials for Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Rock Band 2, Skate 2, and Madden NFL 09. All of these games were moderately successful (Madden 09 being a big success and Skate 2 still having far more time to sell), but it doesn't matter when advertising swallow the measly profits they make. You're not going to be the leading third party unless you focus development on the leading platforms. Would EA have been as much of a monster for the past decade if they had developed on the N64 and the Saturn while mostly ignoring the Playstation, or making games for the Xbox and Gamecube and only throwing the occasional bone to the Playstation 2? Admittedly, the HD consoles have demographics more suited to EA's biggest hits (shooters, sports games). But EA's success has always been built on cheap casual games. Focusing on higher budget HD games is going to continue to hurt them. This is why we see publishers like D3 who make games that nobody has ever heard of but still ends up with millions in profit while the biggest third party developer loses hundreds of millions of dollars. Obviously there was something else going on at EA to make the company lose money (I SERIOUSLY doubt that they lost 600 million just from a couple games selling below expectations).

Despite the consoles having approximately equal marketshare, EA got 29% of its revenue from HD titles, and 11% from Wii titles.

Did EA have a 29:11 HD to Wii game ratio (or more like 29:14, thanks to individual unit costs)? Were the profit margins on Wii games so much higher than the HD games, that EA should just drop HD development altogether? Was it even higher at all? Does anyone have any real numbers to support these assumptions?

The Wii doesn't make EA as much revenue OR profit as the HDs -- if it did, EA would make a lot more Wii games, plain and simple. The "3rd parties make crap for the Wii" excuse is getting old. All of EA's AllPlay titles this past year were decent, yet their revenue stunk. Should EA just abandon their sports franchise staples altogether, and start making pool, pinball, etc. for the Wii masses, or do you think that's already covered a bit?

The attach rate is for 3rd party Wii titles is abysmal. Its *not* because they all "stink", either. The Wii sucks for 3rd party development, in all but a select few genres (i.e. casual), until proven otherwise, or until it outnumbers the HDs by a colossal margin.

Groucho, notice how they say they're going to focus more on Wii games? Hm?

Did you not read about the marketing? The name all play drives away the very audience the game is for. Not only that, most of their big titles go for HD. Of course it is going to have more revenue! And how can you say that wii sucks for 3rd party development, there have been no titles that can compare because they are either lower quality or have some cockamany marketing (or none at all). Why do you think Sega's games are selling better on the wii, including the sonic ones. Hint: they are not marketing them as all play.

Lastly, Montana I agree it is not one or two games. It is the whole paradigmn of the company. It has to change. This will keep happeneing until it does.

How many Wii games had the development budget or marketing budget of Army of Two, Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Burnout Paradise, Mercenaries 2 or Battlefield Bad Company?

Realistically, those games alone probably have 2 to 4 times the combined development and marketing budget of all Wii exclusive games released by EA to date ...

The wii games don't need the same budget as HD, what they need though, is the good teams working hard to make the best game possible. The nature of the wii makes it so that dev costs will be inherently lower. Now, for marketing, if they got even half that budget, DONE CORRECTLY, we would see a marked difference.