Majesco cans two games, shifts to budget/handheld

Majesco has announced that is will focus on budget and handheld games from now on and has reportedly cancelled its Taxi Driver and Demonik games in light of some fairly disastrous fourth-quarter financial results.

Results were nasty across the board compared to its last financial year (in brackets): net revenue was $59.7 million ($121.0m), operating loss was $70.2m (against operating income of $12.1m), net loss was $70.9m ($11.2m). Ouch.

In a conference call since the announcement, GameCloud reports that Majesco confirmed the cancellation of Taxi Driver (an adaptation of the Martin Scorsese film in development at Papaya) and Demonik (a Terminal Reality title based on concepts by Clive Barker).

Said Jesse Sutton, president of Majesco: "This has been a difficult year for Majesco. We entered the premium console market with high expectation for success, but as a result of a variety of factors we were not able to meet our expectations. Recently, we evaluated our product portfolio and have sold or cancelled most of our premium console titles that were scheduled for release in 2006 and beyond.

"Majesco is repositioning itself and shifting its product strategy away from the premium console game market. Going forward, Majesco will focus primarily on publishing value and handheld video games."