Activision on the up

Activision's latest financial results gave the company cause for celebration last night, with net revenues for their last financial year (which ended on March 31st) up 27% on the previous year at $786m, while profits were also well up at $52m. The Tony Hawk phenomenon was largely to thank for the strong showing, with Activision claiming that the series (which was released on everything from GameBoy Color to Xbox last year) is now the biggest independent gaming franchise in America. Strong sales of Tony Hawk on the PC, aided by the likes of Jedi Outcast and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, saw Activision's sales for the beige box growing rapidly, while Wreckless and (you guessed it) Tony Hawk 3 helped to make the Xbox the next biggest selling format for Activision in the first three months of 2002. Looking ahead, the huge success of the new Spider-Man movie is already helping Activision's tie-in game to clamber up the charts in the US, and a European release on every format under the sun is expected on June 7th. In all the publisher has a shocking 65 titles in the pipeline for release over the next year, including everything from gory first person shooter Soldier of Fortune II to GameCube role-playing game Lost Kingdoms. "As the installed base for the new console systems continues to grow worldwide, we expect fiscal 2003 and 2004 will continue to be record years for Activision", CEO Robert Kotick proclaimed. And on their current form, who would bet against them?