CD Projekt RED still has two unannounced projects in the pipeline, CFO says

By Adrianna Ebert

Sept 3 (Reuters) - CD Projekt RED has two unannounced projects in the development phase, the video game developer's finance chief Piotr Nielubowicz said during a post-earnings conference call on Wednesday.

Poland's biggest game developer on Wednesday posted a 37% rise in its half-year net profit to 249.1 million zlotys ($66.75 million), beating analysts' expectations of 201 million zlotys seen in a Reuters poll.

The company believes it can achieve the performance goal set for the first tranche under its incentive programme, which calls for 2 billion zlotys in cumulative net profit between 2023 and 2026, Nielubowicz said, adding it had already reached 86% of this target.

"With strong back catalogue performance, the upcoming 'The Witcher 3' remastered edition ..., the 'Edgerunners 2' to premiere, and the other partnerships and initiatives, we believe in reaching this ambitious goal," he said.

However, he added CD Projekt RED would most likely not meet the 3 billion zloty performance condition set for the second stage of the incentive programme covering years 2024 to 2027, based on its current release schedule.

The company will release "Songs of the Past", a new expansion to its 2015 blockbuster "The Witcher 3" game, next year.

Joint-CEO Michal Nowakowski said that 900,000 players had added "Songs of the Past" to their wishlists on online platforms within a week.

As of July 31, CD Projekt RED had 519 developers working on "The Witcher 4", which is targeting a 2028 release window, while the team working on "Cyberpunk 2" consisted of 184 developers, with no launch date announced yet.

($1 = 3.7320 zlotys)

(Reporting by Adrianna Ebert; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)