The Korean games firm announced consolidated sales of KRW 338.7 billion (USD 361m) in 2006, but pre-tax profit dropped 41 per cent to KRW 50.0bn (USD 53.3m).

Year-on-year sales have remained constant, thanks to its continuing success with products such as Lineage and Lineage II, with the fall in profit resulting from increased investment in development to expand NCsoft's portfolio. In addition, the results included the one-time write-off related to Auto Assault in Q2.

For FY2007 NCsoft forecasts sales of KRW 358-367 billion and operating profit of KRW 42-49 billion.

"In preparation for growth of the global online game market, NCsoft has set up a development system with the ability to launch more than one major MMO game and several casual game titles every year," said CFO Jaeho Lee.

"To accomplish this goal and establish a strong product pipeline, we plan on an 18 per cent year-to-year increase in the development budget this year as well. After several years of spending on development costs, we believe the fruits of these labours will finally begin paying off soon. NCsoft is excited about the prospects for our gaming community at the end of this year when we expect to launch two highly anticipated products, Tabula Rasa from Richard Garriott and Aion."