YEN 6bn loss for Namco Bandai

Namco Bandai have reported a net loss of YEN 6bn for the first half of the financial year.

The company’s earnings saw a significant decline from the profit of YEN 1.3bn reported in the same period last year.

Sales for the six months ending September 30th fell by 9.5 per cent year-on-year to YEN 172.7bn, with a total of 8.4 million units shipped during the period – a slight decrease compared to the 8.9 million shipped in 2008.

Namco Bandai’s best-selling game for the half year was Ben 10: Alien Force, which sold 480,000 units across the US and Europe. This was followed by Afro Samurai, which sold 420,000 units, and Tales Of Vesperia, which sold 410,000.

The release of Tekken 6, which hit shelves on October 30th, is expected to boost the publisher’s software sales for the remainder of the year. Namco Bandai predicts it will sell a total 25.7 million units by December 31st, an improvement on last year’s 23.4 million units.

The company also predicts sales of YEN 400bn, a year-on-year decline from YEN 426bn, and net income YEN 8.5bn, down from last year’s YEN 11.8bn.