NCSoft Q3 Financials: Steady As They Go, B&S 2 And Aion 2 Coming Next Year

NCSoft's Q3 2019 financials are out into the wild, and the raw numbers don't provide for a whole lot of swell talking points. Most games are slightly up in revenue for the quarter, with Guild Wars 2 being slightly down. Overall company sales are down a whopping 3% this quarter and 1% year-over-year. Burn it all down!

So, in an effort to provide something more to talk about, I listened to the conference call and its Q&A session. That provided at least a few more interesting tidbits to discuss, such as the fact that Lineage2M is launching in Korea on Nov. 27. The game "broke records" for having seven million players sign up for pre-registration, which seems like the sort of thing companies don't usually keep records of. NCSoft is probably hopeful L2M can provide the same kind of boost Lineage M did when it launched back in Q2 2017 and sent mobile sales skyrocketing.

As for other games in the pipeline, Blade & Soul 2 and Aion 2 are both on track to still launch next year, though exact timing and strategy is still being worked out. Lineage Worldwide, a.k.a. Lineage W also on the horizon, though no date was given. For that, NCSoft realizes it needs "a new approach" to make the game successful across the world, which could be good news for Western gamers who were dissatisfied with Lineage's grindy nature. The chibi-style Blade & Soul S also doesn't have a launch date, though it's supposed to launch "overseas" first.

You can check out the NCSoft financial statement on the company's investor relations page.