EA earnings call.

I was wondering what all of your thoughts on the EA earnings call were. Here is a link to Darth Haters coverage. The most important things to me were

1. Nothing new on a release date [15:15] "...Star Wars MMO which is expected to ship in calendar 2011, but after the close of fiscal 11." So a between April 1 and Dec 31,2011

2. Not sure if "we have pushed our guidance to May,..., is so that we have a better insight on just this title" modifies point 1 to between May 1st and Dec 31st or not.

3. "...there's been a fair amount of talk on various blogs describing spends that are vastly higher than anything we've ever put in place so don't read sort of gamer blogs as having any substance, some of them bring a chuckle but they also bring a frustration for those that are being responsible with the management of EA's R&D dollars when they read sort of falsehoods out of the press." made me lol. Take that EAlouse.

4. I thought the 500,000 subscriber to be sustainable, 1,000,000 to be profitable was interesting. Lower than I was guessing but see point 3 above.

5. I think Riccitiello's market analysis (bullet 5 on DH) was odd. WoW was successful because it opened new markets to an MMO. Likewise, I think SWTOR will tap new markets of SW fans and Bioware RPG fans as much as cutting into existing mmo's.

EDIT: corrected a number of typos. I shouldn't post when I'm a couple of cups in...but I probably shouldn't edit posts when I'm a couple of cups in either...oh well.

Thanks for this update

Hell yeah, thx Godric for this important info

Nothing of any use for a release date. "May guidance" simply means in another 3 months/1 fiscal quarter from this February guidance they will speak again to investors.

The talk confirms EA's continued aim to increase digital revenue and that the big boss is quite fond of MTs and DLC.

The tone is usual for that type of presentation, breeze past expenses and play up income.