Activision released details of its earnings call overnight, and it didn’t make for encouraging reading. Net loss for the second fiscal quarter was $10.1 million compared with a net income of $9.1 million reported for the same period last year. The size of the release schedule for 2003 – significantly smaller than last year - was cited as the main reason for the dip in fortunes.
President of Activision, Ron Doornink stated, "We had a light release schedule for the second quarter, however, our main focus for this fiscal year remains our third quarter releases - Tony Hawk's Underground, True Crime: Streets of LA, Call of Duty and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, which represent some of the strongest, most innovative games in our company's history"
With Tony Hawk Underground still to come to Europe before Christmas, and True Crime, Call of Duty, and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World already available, some seasonal cheer is still on the cards for Activision. Post-Christmas releases of note include Tenchu: Return from Darkness for Xbox, and Pitfall Harry and MTX: Mototrax.
Activision also announced that Gray Matter, the developer that brought us Return to Castle Wolfenstein, has had its next project, Trinity, excised from publisher Activision's release schedule. The promising-looking first-person shooter was announced in April 2003, and attendees of May's E3 in Los Angeles were the first to see images from the game. Then it all went a bit quiet…until now. The publisher has also decided to put the kibosh on a sequel to basketball title, Street Hoops, and Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder 2 too.