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Sales and profits down for Namco Bandai

Full year results disappoint as game division drags losses down to $312 million

Japanese publisher Namco Bandai has reported a fall in both sales and net profit for the full financial year, as losses stand at ¥29.1 billion (£209m/$312m).

Revenues fell by 11 per cent to ¥378.5 billion (£2.7m/$4.1bn), while net profits fell from a positive ¥11.8 billion (£85m/$126m) a year ago.

The publisher's best seller during the 12 months ended March 31, 2010 was Tekken 6 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with 1.84 million unit sales worldwide. Sales of Tekken 6 on PSP, which was released some time after the home console versions, were counted separately and stood at 0.47 million.

The second biggest seller was Western cartoon tie-in Ben 10, with Alien Force selling 1.08 million and Alien Force 2 0.81 million.

Only one Gundam game made the list of the company's top 10 selling games, further explaining the poor results, with Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus on PSP selling 0.43 million units.

Overall the PSP accounted for the greatest number of sales of any format with 5.48 million units sold across 22 different titles. The Wii sold 5.21 million units across just 12 titles, while the Nintendo DS needed 35 titles to reach a total of 4.22 million.

The company's video games division saw overall revenues of ¥137.5 billion (£0.99bn/$1.5bn) over the course of the year, but generated the largest operating income loss of any of the company's divisions at ¥6.85 billion (£49m/$73m).

The most lucrative division for Namco Bandai, which owns the rights to a number of Japanese properties including Gundam, was its toys and games unit. Sales of ¥148.8 billion (£1.1bn/$1.6bn) generated a positive operating income figure of ¥10.8 billion (£78m/$116m).

As a result Japan remains by far the company's most import region in terms of revenues and profits, with operating income in both the Americas and Europe both registering small losses.

With the company in the midst of major restructuring goodwill impairment and deferred tax assets were also blamed for the losses.

Nevertheless the company is predicting a return to profit in the new financial year, with sales of ¥400 billion (£2.9bn/$4.3bn) and net profits of ¥4.5 billion (£32m/£48m).