Eidos Financial Woes Looming After Tomb Raider: Underworld Sells 1.5 Million

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Tomb Raider: Underworld failed to meet publisher Eidos' internal projections, despite internal estimates that the game has sold 1.5 million units since its November debut.

As with many publishers in recent months, Eidos cited a "difficult North American economy" for "a lower start in North America." As a result, Eidos lowered its earning expectations for the fiscal year, from between $273-303 million to $242-273 million.

The lowered expectations may require Eidos to enter into discussions with its lending bank, the company said, along with word of passing its "peak net debt position." Though the company reports that it has "sufficient headroom" in its "committed banking facility," lower-than-expected profits may require it to seek more funding from the bank.

Since the announcement this morning, Eidos' stock has dropped over 30%.

Developed by Crystal Dynamics, the action-adventure game arrived on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS. A PlayStation 2 release is due later this year.

Upon the game's release, Eidos was caught in a public relations snafu, as its PR firm Barrington Harvey admitted it was attempting to "manage" review scores in the game's opening weekend, citing a belief that it deserved a score of 8/10 or higher.

Eidos' next major release is Rocksteady Games' Batman: Arkham Asylum, which arrives on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at some point in the summer months.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
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    January 9, 2009 2:54 PM

    lol @ 1.5m being crappy

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      January 9, 2009 3:09 PM

      [deleted]

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      January 9, 2009 3:13 PM

      [deleted]

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        January 9, 2009 3:43 PM

        Yes, it terrifies me to think 1.5 Million is woefully under target. 1.5 Million units for some games is not very good (based on what is spent), but I'd think 1.5 Million for Tomb Raider would be fine.

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          January 9, 2009 3:57 PM

          Well you have to take that in context, this is one of Eidos' key franchises... Any publisher is going to be unhappy with those numbers for a key franchise, plus the fact that it was released for all systems as well.

          This is like saying Call of Duty sold 1.5 million for Activision.

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            January 9, 2009 5:58 PM

            Well, past sales have shown that Call of Duty should move an insane amount of units, so those expectations are justified. I cannot imagine (but of course, have no data to back this up) that the past 2 or 3 Tomb Raider games just destroyed sales charts.

            1-3 million seems reasonable for this franchise which hasn't had a crazy long dev cycle, is the second or third for this generation, and is made by the same studio.

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      January 9, 2009 3:58 PM

      [deleted]

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