News

Namco Bandai sees $67 million loss

First half of 2010 looking bleak for Japanese gaming giant

Namco Bandai sees $67 million loss
Toward the latter end of September, Namco Bandai hinted at hard times ahead when it admitted to taking a careful look at its mobile gaming arm, with the possibility of job losses and passing off of mobile distribution to a partner.

GamesIndustry.biz is now reporting that Namco Bandai has put out figures showing a loss of ¥6 billion (around £40 million) for the first half of the current financial year. Last year, the same period saw a ¥1.3 billion (just under £9 million) profit.

Naturally, this shows a significant drop in game sales, with the period ending September 30th down 9.5 per cent year-on-year to ¥172.7 billion (£1.15 billion). Despite this, the company remains optimistic that Tekken 6 could yet prove to be a saviour toward the end of the financial year.

None of this sounds particularly hopeful for the mobile branch of Namco Bandai, though its iPhone presence is likely to remain active.

Yes. Spanner's his real name. And, yes, he's heard that joke before.