EIDOS BRACES FOR MARKET SHAKEUP
Copyright 2001 www.tombraiderchronicles.com Source: ZD Net

[ March 26th 2001 ]

Tomb Raider star Lara Croft faces her toughest battle to date as shares in Eidos Interactive dropped sharply Friday following an announcement by the computer games company warning of hard times ahead. The transition to the Next Generation of gaming consoles has left the software market unstable, with many users refusing to buy the current stock available from fear of becoming obsolete within a few months. Eidos announced that second half operating profits would be significantly worse than last years figures, resulting in a lower than expected final year profit declaration.

"The company anticipates that these new more powerful gaming platforms will have a positive impact on the market in the long term," Eidos said in a statement. "However the transition is likely to lead to a further weakening of current-generation software in the near term," it said. The delay by Sony's Playstation II attributed to Eidos delaying many of it's planned 2001 titles including the flagship of it's company Tomb Raider Next Generation, although it's GameBoy Colour edition is expected to hit the shelves first quarter 2001 accompanied by Nomad Soul and F1 World Grand Prix. In a separate move, Eidos Interactive released 1.14 million of it's 1.47 share holding in Norwegian data storage firm Opticom injecting a financial boost into it's pre-tax profits of around £84m.