Electronic Arts or EA Games, arguably the most hated video game company in America, has surprisingly surpassed expectations in terms of earnings.
As reported by Venture Beat, the video game publisher has been on a roll since Andrew Wilson took over as the chief executive officer in September 2013. And it seems its good streak is continuing as EA reported its second fiscal quarter earnings, which beat expectations for the quarter that wrapped up on Sept. 30.
Reports are saying that the company's better-than-expected results are widely watched as a bellwether for the $91 billion global market for all things related to gaming. EA was previously forecasted to post non-GAAP earnings of 45 cents per share on revenue of $1.1 billion for the September period.
In addition, the company reported results of 65 cents per share on revenue of $1.5 billion and just a year ago, EA had a profit of 73 cents a share on a $1.22 billion revenue.
According to the Wall Street Journal, one big reason EA is continuing its strong performance in the market is due to its new upcoming game "Star Wars: Battlefront."
The release of the company's game may be a potential blockbuster that made the people from Wall Street anticipate it as much as video game players.
On a conference call with business analysts, EA said that it now expects to sell 13 million units of the game in fiscal 2016, up from an earlier projection of nine million to 10 million, but analysts thought that EA might raise its forecast to between 10 million to 12 million units.
EA partly attributed this new forecast to a robust turnout for the free "beta" version of "Battlefront," in which more than 9.5 million signed up to play a few levels ahead of the game's Nov. 17 release.
According to chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen, "There's strength around 'Star Wars' based on the excitement we saw in the beta, it's hard for us to judge what the real reaction is going to be."
In a related report by Gamespot, the PC massive multiplayer online game "Star Wars: The Old Republic," another "Star Wars" title from EA, saw its subscriber rose by 33 percent. However, the video game company did not share the new total subscribers figure and even if it did, it would not justify the whole story as the free-to-play game subscriptions are only optional.
As for its new target, the company is aiming for a net revenue for the full fiscal year of $4.5 billion, up by $50 million from the company's previous forecast.
Here's to EA reaching its goals!
