Namco Bandai reduces losses

Publisher Namco Bandai has posted a net loss of 1.93bn (around $24m) for the first half of its financial year. The number is a big improvement on the loss of 6bn ($74m) seen in the same period a year before.

Net sales for the period were up slightly at 173.60bn ($2bn).

The company’s content division, the home of games and music, saw sales of 71.45bn but registered an overall loss of 2.6bn.

The best selling game throughout the period was Tekken 6, which shifted 1.07m units despite the fact it was released way back in October 2009. Licensed movie title Despicable Me sold 390k units worldwide and sequel Dead to Rights: Retribution sold 350k.

In total, 3.8m games were sold in Europe in the period – far less than the publisher’s 9.8m sales in Japan and 7.3m in the US.

The DS remains Namco Bandai’s most successful format with 2,035,000 sold in H1. This was followed by PS3 (1,825k), PSP (1,201k), Xbox 360 (980k) and Wii (803k).