Electronic Arts warns on profits
Video game giant Electronic Arts (EA) has issued another profit warning saying that holiday sales had been worse than expected.
At the end of October, EA warned on profits and announced plans to cut between 500 and 600 jobs.
Now it has said that its performance will fall short of already low forecasts, although it will not make an updated forecast until February.
EA publishes games such as Fifa Soccer, Left 4 Dead, Rock Band and Spore.
The company said it had been hit by the growing market share of Nintendo's Wii console, because Nintendo also makes most of the top-selling games for the console.
EA said it would now try to make additional cuts to its costs on top of those announced in October. It did not say how many more jobs would be cut.
Analysts said that some of EA's titles, such as Dead Space and Left 4 Dead, had been selling well, but that others, such as Need for Speed Undercover, Mirror's Edge and the latest instalment in the Rock Band franchise, had been disappointing.
EA's shares had fallen 11.5% before the announcement was made and dropped another 10% in electronic after-hours trading.
Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:35 am
