Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) issued Q4 and full-year numbers on Tuesday. The competitor of Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI), THQ (NASDAQ: THQI) and Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) reported adjusted fourth-quarter revenues of $919 million, which was good for a 50% increase. Earnings per diluted share were $0.09 on an adjusted basis, also representing a 50% jump. For the full year, adjusted revenues jumped 30% to $4 billion and earnings per diluted share rose 36% to $1.06. Not too bad.

EA, according to Briefing.com, also beat Wall Street's expectations by quite a bit. EA was forecast to only break-even on a non-GAAP basis, so the difference was a nice $0.09. In terms of operational cash flow, EA increased the metric by 33% during the fourth quarter, but for the full year, operational cash flow decreased 15%. Ah, such is life, I guess. Nevertheless, EA produced 27 titles that sold over a million units this year -- three more than in the previous year. Fifteen of its titles sold over 2 million units -- five more than the last fiscal period. Titles such as Army of Two and Rock Band, as well as various sports franchises, drove the results.

Things sound pretty good, don't they? EA is definitely a major force on the Sony (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) Wii platforms. But EA has had some challenges during this console cycle, and there is the perception that it needs a major merger to combat the threat posed by the Activision and Vivendi Games transaction. And let's not forget that Activision is on fire all on its own. That's what the whole attempted takeover of Take-Two is all about.

Continue reading Electronic Arts beats expectations, but is it the best publisher out there?

Electronic Arts beats expectations, but is it the best publisher out there? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 14 May 2008 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.