EA’s financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year are looking a little droopy, as losses of $234 million (up $95 million last year) dragged the company’s performance down.

EA CEO John Riccitiello says, however, that their quarterly net revenue of $644 million is “better than expected,” even though that number is down from $804 million during the same period last year:

“Good execution delivered better-than-expected financial results in the first quarter,” said Riccitiello.

Driving this performance were the releases of The Sims 3 (with 3.7 million units sold), EA Sports Active (1.8 million units sold) and Fight Night Round 4.

The Sims 3 was notably the top selling game at retail in both North America and Europe for the quarter combined, while EA Sports Active is now officially EA’s most successful Wii game, helping EA to a 21% and 13% share of that console’s market in North America and Europe respectively.

During the results’ associated conference call, Riccitiello reflected on last year’s harsh retail climate, EA’s flawed insistence on bunching up their releases into the third quarter of the year, and the company’s imperfect marketing during the holiday of 2008:

“One of the learnings we had from FY09 was that we bunched up too much into the Q3 quarter (October-December),” said Riccitiello. “Where some of our titles crowded out the competition, they were crowded out by other EA titles.

“…A year ago, when we had one major release in FYQ4—we [now] have four major releases in Q4 (January-March). We really put together a plan that is designed to take advantage of the fact that there are 12 months in a year, and we think we can actually do better with our key titles by spacing them out.”

In particular, EA are looking to rectify ineffective marketing efforts for their upcoming games, Dragon Age and Brütal Legend, commenting that Brütal Legend is “one of the most unique” games he’s seen in a long time.

Riccitiello also commented on EA’s plans to support both Sony and Microsoft’s motion control devices in the future, saying:

”We’re really positive on both. Our view is that motion-based gaming is something that is going to both drive installed base and drive interest and drive growth.”