Electronic Arts has an earnings call coming in the new few weeks, and it's expected to paint a picture of the company's plans for 2021.
While these are far from the kind of pomp and circumstance you'd expect from a consumer-facing event, there's still potential for some new announcements in amongst news on how the company did in 2020.
So, here's when it'll be happening, as well as what we can expect.
What EA Revealed
The earnings call was yesterday, and EA posted impressive numbers.
EA Sports engaged over 230 million gamers, while FIFA Ultimate Team hit almost 6 million daily active players in December.
Apex Legends grew its player base by 30% year-on-year, while the Sims 4 had now had over 33 million players, with record players in December.
All of this contributed to an 8% year-over-year increase in Net Bookings – up to $5.956 billion.
As for this quarter, EA expects net revenue to hit $5.6 billion.
"We’re bringing great entertainment to hundreds of millions of people all over the world," said Andrew Wilson, CEO.
"Our amazing teams continue to deliver exceptional, high-quality experiences as more players connect with their friends and engage deeply with our games. With our expansion plans for EA SPORTS, strong catalogue of owned IP, leading live services, and ability to span every platform, we are growing to reach an even larger audience."
"We delivered another strong quarter, driven by live services outperformance in Ultimate Team and Apex Legends," said COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen.
"We are raising our net bookings outlook for the full year on the strength we continue to see in our business. Looking further ahead, even with the upside this year, we anticipate delivering growth in fiscal 2022, driven by the next Battlefield."
When Is EA's Next Earnings Call?
According to EA's events page, the call will occur on February 2nd – the same date Apex Legends Season 8 kicks off, coincidentally.
While much of the information presented will be quite dry (it is an investor-focused event, of course), expect some tidbits on what's to come in 2021.
What Can We Expect To Be Revealed?
EA has been expected to release six games on next-gen hardware by March 2022, as per its last investor call.
Among those is expected to be a new Need For Speed title from Criterion, as well as the usual FIFA, Madden, and NHL releases.
We also know that the next Battlefield is expected in Holiday of 2021, with EA CEO Andrew Wilson previously noting that we'll hear more about the game in the Spring.
But what of what we don't know yet?
It looks as though Mass Effect Legendary Edition will drop in March, with a new game in the franchise in development, too. Could we get more info on an expected release year?
Speaking of Bioware, we could yet hear more about Anthem's revamp.
The big question mark, though, is likely to be Star Wars.
EA had an exclusive agreement with Disney, but with Ubisoft now working on a new open-world Star Wars game, investors will likely have questions.
We know EA still intends to develop Star Wars games, and Squadrons was one of the sleeper hits of 2020 – could the publisher reveal firmer plans, perhaps including Jedi: Fallen Order 2?
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