$24m six-month loss for Namco Bandai

Publisher/developer Namco Bandai continues to post a net loss, this time for ¥1.93 billion ($24 million) over the first fiscal half of 2010.

However, this is a $50 million improvement on losses of ¥6 billion ($74 million) for the same period in 2009.

Sales were strong at ¥174 billion ($2.13 billion), with 41 per cent of that stemming from its content division (comprising games, music and videos).

The publisher's biggest-hitters for the quarter were Tekken 6, which sold 1.07 million in the US, and movie tie-in Despicable me, at 390, 000.

Japan remained Namco Bandai's largest territory, however – selling 9.8 million software units against the US's 7.3 million and 3.8 mill in Europe.

Namco Bandai is currently refocusing development efforts on Japan and outsourced studios, having laid off a number of developers at its US offices last week.