Konami profits slashed despite rising game revenues

Japanese publisher Konami has announced disappointing full year results, with profits almost halved as sales in the firm's toy division dropped significantly, even though arcade and console game sales were both up slightly.

Figures reported by US website GameSpot reveal that for the 12 months ended March 31st, the firm announced a net profit of 10.5 billion Yen (77.5 million Euro), down almost 48 per cent from last year's profit figure of 20.1 billion Yen (148 million Euro).

Sales across all of the publisher's operations were down by some 4.7 per cent, dropping to 261 billion Yen (1.93 billion Euro) - but looking at the console and arcade game sectors separately actually reveals a rise in sales for both of them.

The console game sector saw sales rise by 2.1 per cent to 94 billion Yen (694 million Euro), with one of the biggest drivers being Metal Gear Solid 3, which sold 3.3 million units worldwide, the bulk of them in North America; while the arcade game sector did even better, with sales up 6.1 per cent to 38 billion Yen (280 million Euro).

So what went wrong for the company? The answer lies largely with the firm's toy and hobby division, which saw a major decline in revenues as sales of the hugely popular Yu-Gi-Oh! card game franchise began to drop off worldwide, with the decline especially notable in Europe.

Even the launch of a number of new products in the Far East couldn't save the division from reporting a 28.6 per cent decline in revenues, with sales down to 41 billion Yen (302 million Euro).

Shares in Konami dropped slightly on the Nikkei exchange on the news, despite the firm's positive outlook for the coming year - with profits projected to rise by 73 per cent to 18 billion Yen (133 million Euro), on a sales rise of 3.6 per cent, bringing the firm's sales revenues to 270 billion Yen (2 billion Euro).