Bad Company Debut Helps Double EA Q1 Sales

Electronic Arts has announced the results of its first quarter, showing sales more than doubled to $804 million driven by sales of 1.6 million copies of Battlefield Bad Company, and losses down to $95 million. The debut of UEFA Euro 2008, and the continued strength of Rock Band was also credited for the jump in sales, which rose from $395 million the year prior. Losses fell from $132 million in the first quarter of the prior year. Looking back at the past quarter, EA says its Spore Creature Creator has been downloaded by 2.5 million users, who have created over 2 million creatures in the first six weeks. The company says its EA Mobile currently stands as "the world's leading publisher of games for phones," as well, seeing a 33 percent jump to $44 million in sales. Looking forward, EA says it expects yearly sales to rise between 34-41 percent by the end of the fiscal year on March 31st of 2009, somewhere between $4.9 and $5.15 billion, compared to $3.67 billion the year prior. Said CEO John Riccitiello, "We are now seeing the early returns of the change agenda we started last year. Innovation and quality are rising, our games are more accessible and fun, and we have more new titles than at any time in our history. From Spore on the PC to Dead Space on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to MySims on the Wii and Nintendo DS to Scrabble on the iPhone and Facebook, this is the best title portfolio in the company's history."