NCsoft has released its second quarter earnings, showing sales down 11% to $82.1 million over the prior year and profits of $11.5 million on strong continued sales and subscriptions to the publisher's
Lineage franchise.
NCsoft says Korea still leads the world in sales of its products, with the country's $52.5 million accounting for 59%, followed by $13.9 million in North American sales, $4.9 million in Europe, $8.3 million in Japan, and $2.5 million in Taiwan.
Lineage and
Lineage II continue to lead the company's sales at $27.6 million and $34.7 million resepctively, followed by
Guild Wars at $8.9 million and
City of Heroes/City of Villains at $6.9 million. Sales for the
Lineage series fell a respective 16% and 2% in the quarter, while the
City of Heroes/City of Villains sales rose 7%.
Looking forward to its third quarter, the publisher notes that it will be releasing the second title in the
Lineage II series,
The Chaotic Throne: The Kamael and will officially launch casual titles
SP JAM and
Atrix.
Its next "large-scale MMORPG",
Aion is expected to enter closed beta in Korea on October 31st, while the fall quarter will also see the North American release of the first
Guild Wars expansion, and the release of Richard Garriott’s
Tabula Rasa.
Said NCsoft CFO Jaeho Lee said, “During the second quarter, we continued the integration of accounts in the PlayNC service platform. Additionally,
Atrix, SP JAM and other new casual games were introduced. We saw a noticeable growth of up to 1.3 million visitors to the site during the quarter. We also announced a strategic and exclusive development deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to begin making online games for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. This further cements our position in the industry as the leading online game developer and publisher.”
