Activision on rise
Claws its way back into the black
Activision surprised the stock market last night by announcing a profit of $29,000 for the three months to June 30th, with revenues up 30% to $110m. That profit might not sound like much (and it isn't) but analysts had been expecting them to post a loss, and given that Activision dropped $5.2m in the same period last year it does mark something of an improvement for the Californian publisher. The company put their unexpected bounty down to the arrival of the GameBoy Advance, with as much as 31% of their revenues coming from US sales of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and Bomberman Tournament on the new hand-held. Strong sales of Mat Hoffman BMX on the PSOne also helped boost their figures. Despite this they are expecting a quiet summer compared to last year.
Meanwhile Reuters has confirmed that Activision will only be releasing one Xbox title in its current fiscal year, which ends on March 30th 2002. This will almost certainly be Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Nintendo can look forward to absolutely no GameCube titles from Activision during this period, although we are currently expecting Spider-Man : The Movie and Tony Hawk 3 to both reach the Cube some time next summer.