Word in from Disney just now that the company has renamed it’s videogaming division. To Disney Interactive.

Bet that decision took some hardcore think-tanking and focus-grouping!

Disney Interactive, formerly (and often confusingly) known as Buena Vista Games has also just announced fiscal first quarter profits.

While The Walt Disney Company announces profits of $1.7 billion for the period ended December 30, the company's Consumer Products division (which includes Disney Interactive) showed a moderate decrease in profits over the same period - from $733 million to $692 million compared to the previous year.

A Disney spokesmen spun the loss as follows, “The decrease in segment operating income for the quarter was primarily due to lower contractual minimum guarantee revenues and a decline in revenues from self-published titles at Buena Vista Games, partially offset by higher earned royalties across multiple licensing product categories, led by the strong performance of Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean merchandise.”

Disney also noted that there was a much stronger line-up of Buena Vista Games games based on Disney’s film properties in the previous year such as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Chicken Little. A clever move – blame this year’s drop in profits on the fact that last year you were amazing!

"I am very pleased to report such strong quarterly earnings to kick off 2007," said Bob Iger, president and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company. "These results are particularly gratifying given the great year we had in 2006 and are another clear sign our strategy is driving growth and creating shareholder value."

You might remember that the newly-named Disney Interactive has not been all about videogame versions of Disney’s kids movies of late, having put out a few PSP crackers from Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Q Entertainment (see our recent Mizuguchi interview here) including Lumines II and – out tomorrow in fact – Every Extend Extra.

The company has also recently acquired the Turok comic book license, and you can read all about that from our recent trip to meet that game’s developer.