Infogrames Posts Reduced Revenues On Decreased U.S. Sales

Troubled European game company Infogrames, which is in the midst of financial restructuring and owns the Atari subsidiary in the U.S., posted its fourth quarter revenue, which included a 32 percent decrease in sales over the entire financial year, due primarily to weak sales of software released within the U.S. The company stated that revenue for the year ended March 31, 2006 totaled €391.2 million ($493.2 million), compared to €577.2 million ($735.4 million) a year prior. During the fourth quarter sales were €94.7 million ($120.66 million), down 3.5 percent from €98.0 million ($124.88 million) a year ago - the company, which is headquartered in France, has not released information on its profit or loss for the year. Despite the revenue decrease, the company did state that fourth quarter sales were helped by the release of several new games, including Driver: Parallel Lines for the PS2 and Xbox, Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure for the PS2, Xbox, and PC, and the PC MMORPG Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. While sales in the Asia and European markets showed an increase of 10 percent for the quarter, those in the U.S., home of its Atari subsidiary which accounted for 42 percent of the company's sales for the quarter, fell a dramatic 17 percent. Other companies have posted similar, while perhaps not as significant drops in revenue, as consumers continue to put off purchases and await the next-generation of consoles expected to launch later this year. In addition, Infogrames and Atari will showcase a number of high profile titles at E3 next week, including Alone in the Dark for the Xbox 360 and PC, Test Drive Unlimited for the Xbox 360, PC, PS2, and PSP, Neverwinter Nights 2 for the PC, and Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics, the first Dungeons & Dragons game for PSP.