Chinese MMO giant Shanda today announced a major decline in profits for the first quarter of 2006,slide from RMB 220.1 million in Q1 2005 to RMB 11.8 million in Q1 2006.

After the free-to-play decision for popular Chinese MMO games such as Legend of Mir II,Magical Land and The World of Legend,and the continued issues in EZ Pod hardware, Shanda¡®s fiscal results has been hit heavily.

Despite of those gloomy figures,Tianqiao Chen still has confidence."Our first quarter financial results reflect stabilized online game performance as well as the continued development of our home strategy," said Tianqiao Chen, Shanda¡®s chief executive officer. "We continued to expand the distribution platform for our EZ Pod through partnership with leading PC manufacturers in China such as Hewlett Packard. The transition in our core business this quarter following the introduction of an in-game item-based revenue model has proven to be relatively smooth. We remain confident for the long-term as a strong pipeline of MMORPGs and casual games is scheduled to debut throughout 2006." May luck be with Shanda again.