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Disney game division posts $216 million loss

Eddie Makuch
By Eddie Makuch, News Editor

House of Mouse's game sector the company's only business unit not to post a profit for full year and fourth quarter.

Disney's game division is seeing red. The company reported financial results for its full year and fourth quarter ended September 29 recently, revealing Disney's game business was its only sector not to post a profit for either period. The House of Mouse's "Interactive" sector, which houses its games business, posted a full-year net loss of $216 million on $845 million in total revenue.

Revenue slid 14 percent year-over-year, while the $216 million loss was better than the $308 million hit the company took this time last year. Disney attributed this improved result in part to an increase in the company's social games business.

On the console side, Disney said this business took a hit due to a decline in overall console software sales by way of releasing fewer "significant" titles. This was partially offset, Disney said, by lower marketing costs and decreased product development costs.

"The reduction in console games product development reflected an ongoing shift from console game releases to mobile and social game releases," the company said in a statement.

For the quarter, Disney's Interactive revenue slid 14 percent to $191 million and losses tallied $76 million, compared to losses of $94 million a year ago.

Disney's Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is due out this month for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC, and Wii U.

Eddie Makuch
By Eddie Makuch, News Editor

Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.

20 comments
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TheCyborgNinja
TheCyborgNinja

Gee, maybe it's because awesome games like Split/Second and Turok have their sequels shelved in favor of crappy shovelware that only morons who are too poor to afford it (a side-affect of being a moron who isn't a politician) want to buy in the first place... 

Mr_Big_Boss
Mr_Big_Boss like.author.displayName 1 Like

This is pocket change to Disney.

darkeyez81
darkeyez81 like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Mr_Big_Boss If someone sues Disney for that same amount of money, Disney wouldn't give out that money like pocket change.

nurnberg
nurnberg

Wow these losses are quite big for a video game publisher!  However Disney makes a lot of money elsewhere, so this should not be too worrying for them.  I don't even know what games Disney published, but I suspect them to be movie tie-ins.  Gamers hate them!  Hardly anybody buy movie tie-in games.

kavadias1981
kavadias1981

Every developer seems to be making a loss. Great to see the games industry looking so healthy...

MJ12-Conspiracy
MJ12-Conspiracy

The only Disney game currently on my radar is Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. I do think though if they had not acted to hastily when they cancelled Pirates Of The Caribbean RPG awhile back they might have gained off that game and who knows it might have spawned a sequel and if the developer of the Tron game had put more thought into it maybe it would have been good. Also here's a good idea...start developing Marvel games in house, we are sick of the s***y Sega and Activision games, they are running the Marvel name through the mud, please put an end to it. 

firehawk998
firehawk998

One way to fix this problem Disney is give you Marvel Properties to a new dedicated team that treats the source material seriously, respects the comics, wants to provide the fans with the best experience they can give. In other words : DONT GIVE IT TO ACTIVISION!!!!!!

Simplythebest12
Simplythebest12 like.author.displayName 1 Like

Disney latest movies are all childish crap

mrzero1982pt2
mrzero1982pt2

 @Simplythebest12 there are rumors that Disney may say they do not want activision in public, but they may STILL be looking to buy them. but now that they bought lucasfilm which includes Lucasarts, they have a studio. but if they were smart, they would buy Activision and re brand it into Marvel Games. 

SolidTy
SolidTy like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 5 Like

Disney needs to take notes from fellow Movie Studio Warner, those guys have done a fantastic job this gen from MK to Batman.

firehawk998
firehawk998 like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @SolidTy 100 Percent agreed. I look at the Marvel Catalog and there are so many potential IPs that can be made. They should create an internal studio to handle this properties.

RighteousPlank
RighteousPlank like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @firehawk998  @SolidTy You guys are right, right now I play more DC Comics based games than Marvel because of the better quality and justice done to these games, but don't talk too loud, Disney will buy Warner Bros.

RealFabioSooner
RealFabioSooner like.author.displayName 1 Like

Ah, this one is easy to solve.

 

- Release Epic Mickey 2. If it's even slightly better than the last one it will sell.

- Let Star Wars 1313 development continue as intended, don't interfere in its overall tone.

- Give GoG.com the rights to rework and re-release the recently acquired LucasArts back catalog - ESPECIALLY Grim Fandango, Manic Mansion/Day of the Tentacle, and the Monkey Island/Indiana Jones titles.

- Roll in the profits. XD

zequex
zequex

 @RealFabioSooner A lot of the LucasArts back catalog is already on Steam.

But yes. I want ALL the LucasArts classics again.

 

I wouldn't worry about interfering with 1313. They've been doing a good job so far of letting developers and producers work in their own directions. 

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