Officials from British publisher SCi, owner of Eidos Interactive, have issued a trading update for the company, predicting a 40 percent rise in revenues for the first six months of the company’s fiscal year.
Revenues in the six months to December 31st, 2006 are expected to exceed £70 million ($138.2 mil), compared to £50.1 million ($99 mil) at the same time the previous year - with no specific profit amount being predicted.
Continued sales of
Lego Star Wars (the sequel being published by Activision, on behalf of LucasArts in the UK) and
Justice League Heroes (distributed for Warner Interactive in the UK) were named as the most significant contributors to the increase in revenues. A third of revenues came from distribution of third party titles, with
Lego Star Wars now having sold over 5.4 million units and
Justice League Heroes over one million.
New product releases accounted for approximately 50 percent of revenues for the period, with the most successful being
Just Cause, with over one million units sold over the financial year. As a result the company already has a sequel in development.
Mention was also made of the recent
investment deal with Time Warner, which allows SCi access to properties including Batman, Looney Tunes and the Hanna Barbera catalogue – as well as seeing Warner Bros. distribute Eidos titles in North America. The company intends to invest part of the proceeds from the share subscription to build new development capacity in locations such as Canada and China.
Other new products announced for the second half of the financial year will include the previously revealed
Battlestations: Midway in February,
Tomb Raider: Anniversary in April and the company’s first Wii title in the form of
Bionicle Heroes.
Further new games include new versions of
Tomb Raider,
Hitman and
Championship Manager, plus new intellectual properties including
Kane & Lynch,
Crossfire and Funcom’s massively multiplayer online title
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.
The company’s other second half releases include a number of mobile phone titles aimed at the casual and family market, including
Pony Friends,
Zendoku,
Diner Dash,
Prism: Light the Way,
Ora: Use Your Emotion and PC versions of six classic casual games including
Luxor: Amun Rising,
Jewel Quest and
Cubis 2.
