- With a little more after-hours volume under its belt, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) is now down just 7.9% following its earnings conference call.
- CFO Blake Jorgensen confirmed that the mix shift that led to physical sales jumping 35.5% (vs. 16.5% for digital) benefited from the big role of holiday gift-giving. Star Wars: Battlefront in particular "skewed even more physical than we anticipated," though gifters love to have a wrapped package under the tree rather than a digital code.
- In addition, units of the game bundled with consoles are counted as physical units even though they're distributed as digital code. About 1M of the 13M-plus units sold of Battlefront came in console bundles.
- As for already surpassing the 13M-unit goal they had set for March, the execs noted that Q4 sales of the game might be less than expected since Q3 was obviously much higher. Among the many warnings coming about the current quarter, Jorgensen said foreign exchange would affect Q4 sales by $40M more than last year.
- Asked about plans to pull out of its prominent role at E3 for a more controlled event, CEO Andrew Wilson said "We see this an as opportunity to get close to our players, invite them in to an environment where they feel comfortable to play games, give us feedback ... we see what we're doing as augmenting the overall E3 experience."
- Previously: More from EA's Q3: Record cash flow, strong packaged revenues (Jan. 28 2016)
- Previously: EA slides 11% despite profit beat, strong 'Star Wars' game numbers (Jan. 28 2016)
- Previously: No EA at E3: Game maker gives up prominent spot for private event (Jan. 27 2016)