Bandai Namco announced its financial results for the second quarter of the fiscal year, related to the period between July 1, 2023, and September 30, 2023.
Sales for the whole company were 502,002 million yen, up 5.1% year-on-year. Operating profit was 65,479 million yen, down 19.8% year-on-year.
Looking at the Digital Business specifically, which focuses on video games, sales were 174,316 million yen, down 10.1% year-on-year. Segment profit was 15,516 million yen, down a whopping 65.2％ year-on-year.
The reason for the comparative downturn is easily explained. While Bandai Namco mentions that Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon proved “popular,” it simply couldn’t compete with the sales boost provided by Elden Ring in the same period of the previous year.
Amortization of development costs and marketing costs for new games also played a role. Speaking of mobile games, mainstay titles from popular IPs like Dragon Ball and One Piece performed stably.
Bandai Namco mentions that in light of the increasingly competitive market environment worldwide, the company intends to develop games with an emphasis on quality going forward and utilize marketing initiatives to extend the lifespan of games.
Incidentally, Bandai Namco revised its forecasts for the full fiscal year, but just slightly, with recurring profit raised from 129 million yen to 134 million yen, while net sales and operating profit remain the same as the previous prediction.
If you’d like to compare with historical data, you can read Bandai Namco’s results for the previous fiscal year, published back in May.
If you want to read more about industry financial results, today we also got the announcement from Nintendo, with the Switch passing 132.46 million units and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom passing 19.5 million units shipped.
