Electronic Arts said in its earnings call today that its mainstay EA Sports label will face strong headwinds in the fiscal year that ends March 31, 2012.
EA is the king of sports games and has pretty much had strong recurring revenue from its titles through the years. But the company’s outlook for the fiscal year 2012 is bleaker in part because it will be tough to overcome a strong 2011 fiscal year.
EA chief executive John Riccitiello said the coming year will be challenging because the FIFA soccer game, which sold 12 million units in the past year, will not have the advantage of piggybacking on a World Cup tournament this year.
EA has also delayed its NBA Elite game in order to improve its overall product quality. And Riccitiello said EA is somewhat concerned about the possibility of a lockout for the NFL season this year. That could have a collective impact of $250 million in revenue in the new fiscal year. Despite that “head wind,” Riccitiello said that EA’s outlook is strong.
Riccitiello said he does not know if there will be a lockout with the NFL, but he said EA is prudently planning for revenue from Madden to slip a third in the coming year, or $95 million lower revenues than the previous year. That’s a worst case scenario.
On the positive side, EA said that sports is one of the categories that benefits big time from EA’s growing investment in digital online and mobile games. EA is taking its big console sports hits and is rolling them out across platforms such as the iPhone and iPad. Revenue from the FIFA soccer game’s digital business exceeded $100 million in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2011.
Overall, EA expects revenue of $3.7 billion to $3.9 billion in the coming fiscal year, only slightly off the average of $3.9 billion expected by analysts.