As the old saw has it, 'You have to speculate to accumulate' - apparently Electronic Arts has been doing just that. It's been doing it so well that it's managed to accumulate a $94 million (£48.5m) loss in the last financial quarter.

This can then be folded gently into the overall $454 million (£234m) net loss for the year ended March 31st - compared to a $76m (£39m) profit in the previous financial year. This loss is based on net revenues of $3.67 billion (£1.89b) compared to $3.09b (£1.59) in the previous year.

On the upsides, bear in mind that EA bought BioWare and Pandemic studios in October 2007 for $620 (£319), a deal that closed in February this year.

Also bear in mind that CEO John Riccitiello has apparently also increased spending on game development by 23 percent (to $316 million/£163m) since taking the helm.

On the downside, it looks as if losing the money has brought on a bit of a rethink for EA. Bloomberg reports that in a recent analysts' call, new CFO Eric Brown said that, "The company will no longer provide forecasts for quarterly sales and profit because of potential changes in release dates that can alter performance".

Annual forecasts will, however, be updated quarterly. The most recent one indicates that for the year ending March 2009, EA is looking at revenues of $4.9 billion (£2.5b) to $5.15 billion (£2.65). Quite how that will come out in terms of actual profit is, well, a magic pixy guess that we're sure Michael Pachter and his ilk can declare.

Hissy fit or reality check? We'd like to think the former because we're in that kind of a mood. But stepping back a tad and looking shows us that EA's refusal to base data on release dates means less deadline stress - and this could actually work in terms of making better games. It would also work in terms of attracting creatives such as Rockstar's Houser boys.

Before we go, to back up its projections, EA now claims "about 21 percent of North America's video game" market, up 5 percentage points from a year ago, and it expected to take more share as it outpaces the broader industry's growth of 15 percent to 20 percent", says Reuters.

^{Sources: Reuters
Bloomberg
MCV}