As per the documents provided by the Tokyo-based company, total sales for the entire company amounted to 772,035 million yen (a 3.9% increase year-on-year), while operating profit stood at 78,282 million yen (a 26.3% decrease year-on-year).
In the third quarter, the company’s operating income was 12.80 billion yen, reflecting a 48% decrease year-on-year. Their net income amounted to 8.23 billion yen, representing a 54% decrease.
The only remotely positive aspect is net sales, which reached 270.03 billion yen, a marginal 1.7% increase year over year.
Specifically focusing on the Digital Business, which encompasses games, sales totaled 263,012 million yen (an 8.9% decrease year-on-year), with segment profit reaching 1,615 million yen (a 96.5% decrease year-on-year).
Mainstay mobile games from the Dragon Ball and One Piece franchises demonstrated stable performance both in Japan and overseas. However, a new online game fell significantly below expectations.
If I were to have a guess, my thoughts center around Blue Protocol.
FromSoftware’s Armored Core VI: Fire of Rubicon did manage to garner popularity, according to KADOKAWA the game exceeded expectations, but overall sales of home video games from Bandai Namco have declined due to “unfavorable comparisons with a stronger lineup” in the past year.
The company also cites valuation loss attributable to the aforementioned online game, prompting a review of the titles in development ahead of the next medium-term business plan. This suggests that some projects may have been shelved or canceled.
Bandai Namco aims to implement stricter screening of its games and strategically develop titles to build an optimal portfolio. Collaboration with Bandai Namco Studios will strengthen overall development management. This restructuring of the portfolio and development process will apparently “prioritize quality”.
It’s ironic that Bandai has essentially done nothing but churn out half-hearted asset flips based on shounen franchises like Jujutsu Kaisen, Naruto, and My Hero Academia. These poorly produced titles seem to sell only a mediocre amount of units. Their CEO must be a genius to figure out that consumers want good games and are happy to pay for such a privilege.
As a result of the aforementioned results, the company has revised its full-year operating profit forecast downward from 125,000 million yen to 82,000 million yen, representing a 34% reduction.
Given Bandai Namco’s adoption of the West’s ESG policies, games like Blue Protocol, which is a collaborative effort with Amazon is laced with censorship of “problematic” fictional characters which undoubtedly has led to its failure with both Western audiences and hilariously enough, Japanese ones as well.
Similarly, SYNDUALITY will incorporate desexualized body types to align with ESG policies.
Naturally, a game created by the ESG-favored Bandai Namco in collaboration with Amazon has been censored to cater to a purported “wider audience.” However, this alleged demographic, which doesn’t truly exist.
This so-called wider audience detests all things Japanese, anime, manga, and the like. They have no interest in a “weeb” gacha game that “sexualizes children.”
Meanwhile, Western audiences who actually enjoy such products find the censorship incomprehensible and want nothing to do with the live service title. This sentiment is exacerbated by Bandai Namco’s sudden decision to pull the plug on games like Gundam Evolution for its one-year anniversary.
Bandai Namco, like many other Japanese gaming companies, appears to struggle with understanding that their primary goal should be to create products that consumers actually want to purchase. Instead, they tend to prioritize pushing progressive agendas and delivering censored trash like Blue Protocol, which may end up being discontinued even faster than Square Enix’s Babylon’s Fall when it eventually releases in the west censored to the teeth.
