The lights are on
During its first quarter 2014 earnings call yesterday, Disney reported strong performance in its Interactive division. The segment was responsible for $403 million in revenue compared to $291 million during the same quarter last year.
During the earnings call, CEO Bob Iger laid out some expectations for where Interactive is heading. While he didn’t go so far as to confirm the reported Marvel and Star Wars sets, he did assure that new versions of the game will use more of the companies characters.
He also spoke about how Interactive will be fitting into the games business. “You will see more licensing rather than publishing on the console side, except for Infinity,” Iger said. “We are also basically tracking what we are seeing in the industry, doing a fair amount of work at creating efficiencies and moving off of some of the more traditional platforms into mobile-to-mobile space, mostly for social games and for other casual games.”
Iger didn’t speak specifically about staffing changes, but did suggest that there would be reductions in spending. Disney does project a loss in the second quarter for the Interactive division, but attributes that to an empty release calendar.
[Source: Seeking Alpha]
Our TakeWith an projected loss in the next quarter and a desire to reduce expenses, the stage is set for layoffs at Disney Interactive. We’re hopeful that the reports from earlier in the week are incorrect, but we’re monitoring the situation.
Called it. As soon as the one Disney Interactive guy left and the mobile guy moved in to assume responsibilities, I said they'd start ignoring real games in favor of mobile. Now the "restructuring", expense reductions, layoff rumors... everything's lining up for them to pretty much exit the biz, save for Infinity. And they still hold the Turok license. They used to be so interesting, like, just 4 years ago.
That's a shame; there's no reason why they couldn't create video game IP to equal stuff like Ratchet or Sly Cooper if they just gave it a real try and threw the same talent at it as they did some of their animation. Why can Warner Bros. figure this out with their IP like Batman, and them backing quality original games like Lollipop Chainsaw, but Disney makes it look so hard?
Have you seen how much those stupid infinity action figures are, nuff said moving on