Argonaut records major '03 loss, forecasts improvement in '04

British developer Argonaut Games has announced a pre-tax loss of £10.9 million for the year ended July 31 2003, largely due to the cancellation of deals for two key products - but a strong pipeline promises good performance this Christmas.

The company's pre-tax loss is broadly in line with expectations, following the outright cancellation of Orchid (through a mutual agreement with Namco) and the dropping of long-delayed platformer Malice by publisher Vivendi.

Argonaut also chose to clear the decks to some degree during this financial year, accelerating the write-off of goodwill from the acquisition of its satellite studios such as Just Add Monsters significantly and bringing the goodwill write-off figure to £2.1 million from last year's £0.4 million.

However, despite the rough ride which the company had financially towards the end of its 2003 fiscal year, it continues to maintain one of the strongest balance sheets of any UK games company - with cash of some £5.9 million available - and it boasts a strong product line-up which should see the company through 2004 in better health.

This Christmas alone sees Argonaut releasing 11 SKUs, with four separate titles appearing on shelves - the company's largest release list ever. SWAT: Global Strike Team (published by Vivendi Universal Games), Bionicle (published by LEGO), I-Ninja (published by Namco in the USA, and Sony in Europe) and Carve (published by Take-Two subsidiary Global Star) make up the company's schedule for Christmas.

SWAT: GST and I-Ninja are particularly major hopes for the developer, which last year celebrated its sixth million-selling title, in the form of the PSone version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Looking forward into next year, Argonaut hopes to have two more titles to release in Q1 - with Powerdrome on PS2 and Xbox joining Malice, for which the company is thought to be in the latter stages of negotiating a new publishing deal. With so many projects currently nearing completion, the company is also in negotiations regarding replacement projects for its various teams, with new products expected to be announced in 2004.