EA warns on 2008 profit as "Spore" delayed

By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS.O) posted a wider quarterly loss on Tuesday and forecast adjusted profit this year would miss Wall Street targets as its widely anticipated video game, "Spore," was delayed.

Shares of the world's biggest video game publisher fell almost 3 percent in after-hours trade.

The company, which sells games like "Madden," "Need for Speed" and "The Sims," forecast adjusted profit of 90 cents to $1.20 per share for the year, compared with analysts' average target of $1.31. It forecast a net loss for fiscal 2008.

Redwood City, California-based EA said it was no longer counting on revenue from "Spore," a game where players build organisms from scratch, in the fiscal year ending in March 2008, adding that the game could be delayed until fiscal 2009.

EA owns all the rights to "Spore," and profit margins on the game should be 80 percent or higher, compared with around 30 percent for other upcoming titles like "Crysis" and "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames," which EA is publishing with partners, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said.

"'Spore' explains a lot of it," Pachter said of the company's fiscal 2008 forecast miss. EA's investment in online games explains the rest, he added.

Meanwhile, EA's results from the fourth quarter ended March 31 beat analysts average estimates calling for a profit excluding items of 2 cents per share on revenue of $586.4 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

EA's net loss widened to $25 million, or 8 cents per share, from $16 million, or 5 cents, in the year-earlier period. Excluding items, the company earned 6 cents per share versus 14 cents in the year-earlier period.