Midway Announces Increased Revenues, Losses

Author: by Leigh Alexander, Staff

Major publisher Midway Games has announced that, for the three-month period ending September 30, 2007, its sales totaled $36.7 million, up from $27.4 million last year. At the same time, however, the company reported losses of $33.5 million, increased from $22.5 million in 2006. As for highlights, the company said that Xbox 360 and PC title Stranglehold has exceeded 1 million units shipped worldwide across all platforms, and the company anticipates shipping Stranglehold for the PS3 in Europe in the latter part of November. Midway also highlighted its recent demo of Unreal Tournament 3 in conjunction with developer Epic Games, since a demo of Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC was recently released, and has remained one of the top 2 most downloaded games on FilePlanet.com since it was released on October 12th. However, the PS3 version of the title is still due in 2008, as confirmed earlier last month. However, Midway is now predicting net revenues of approximately $80 million for the final quarter of 2007, and reduced full-year revenue of $160 million - with a net loss of approximately $0.95 per share. According to the firm, this change is "...primarily to reflect the movement of certain Nintendo Wii and DS titles out of this fiscal year, mainly in the European territories, as well as lower expectations for PS3 product sales due to delayed release dates resulting in shorter holiday selling periods." Midway president and CEO David F. Zucker commented of the results: “We remain confident that our technology strategy and product plan position us to grow both revenue and market share as we move into the heart of this console cycle. In the coming months, as we reveal more details on our strong line-up of new IP and major franchises for 2008, we expect to show investors how we plan to realize significant growth in 2008.”