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Namco Bandai blames DS for cutting forecast by 55 percent
Namco Bandai has cut its profit forecasts for the fiscal year by 55% because of slower than expected sales of Nintendo DS titles.
Bloomsberg Japan reports that the newly formed Namco Bandai Holdings, Inc. has reduced its profit forecasts by 55% to 11 billion Yen (~$94 million / ~£55 million) for this fiscal year, ending on March 31st, 2006. This is from the peviously forecasted earnings of 24.4 billion yen ($208 million / ~£120 million). Namco Bandai highlighted that the slower than expected sales of titles like of Pac-Pix, Pac 'N Roll and Ridge Racer DS was one of the main reasons they had to make this change regardless of the highly unexpected success of Tamagotchi DS and expectedly great sales of Bandai-associated Banpresto's Dragonball Z DS game.
All is not lost for Namco Bandai though since the forcast for the entire year will only be slightly lower than expected. Originally the company had an estimate of making around 470 billion yen ($4 billion / ~£2.3 billion) for the year, and this has now only been reduced to 450 billion yen ($3.8 billion / ~£2.2 billion), so the combined firm is not in a particularly disadvantageous position.
In addition, the company announced that it would buy the remaining shares in the heavily Bandai-associated arcade and console game creator Banpresto, which is particularly well known for its Super Robot Wars titles in Japan. Namco Bandai will spend 18.3 billion yen ($156 million / ~£90 million) to buy the remaining stock in Banpresto, at more than 25 percent over the current stock value.
src: Gamasutra, Bloomsberg Japan
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Namco Bandai realizes that it released crappy games and blames anybody but themselves for poor sell That is what the headline should have said
Well, one reason is because all their games suck. I can't believe I bought Ridge Racers.
Errata corrige: pricde = price
Pac games weren't bad, but were too poor for that pricde. If I were in Namco i packed the two games in one, maybe with the addition of a classical Pac Man mode.
Namco´s expectation are always way too high. I mean, they said their goal is to sell 500.000 copies of Ridge Racer 6 only in Japan. Too bad that XB360 hasn´t even hit 100k yet :P
@LeSomeGuy nooooo!!! I hope(and think) BandaiNamco will let Banpresto do it's own thing..
The reson why they fale, is because THEY NEED TO MAKE MORE THAN JUST PACMAN AND RAMDOM GAMES NOONE WANTS.
None of the big titles has hit US yet, titles like Tales and Xenosaga. Pac and Ridge Racer are not that well done, they are just some mini games. They could have done a lot better. I truely can't say them buying out Banpresto is a good thing. Having Namco involved in the production of Super Robot Taisen can only lead to badness.
If they blame nintendo, they should blame themselves.
Honestly, I didn't think either "Pac" games were bad - Pac Pix is INSTANTLY playable by anyone (people at my work that wouldn't even LOOK at a DS actually TOOK it from my hands and played it - that's amazing to me). Pac n Roll was pretty decent as well - PacMan meets Marble Madness with the original emulated PacMan as a bonus. They SHOULD have been $19.99 titles, to be sure - but they weren't bad games. PacMan World 3 - THAT is a pretty bad game ... Let's put the bitching where the bitching is due :)
The aforemention titles have all down fairly well in America. Ridge Racer DS especially--it's essentially a port, but it's garned over 100k in sales. I'm not too sure how well Pac 'N Roll, or Pac Pix have sold yet though. I think Pac-Pix is in ar about 40,000. All of that aside--when you make trash, how do you expect it to sell well? Pac 'N Roll was OK, and Pac-Pix was decent, but Namco/Bandai Holdings has yet release anything killer for the DS. I do have high hopes for Tales Of The Tempest, and Xenosaga 1+2 though. :)
DBZ online would have rocked
Buy the remaining shares of Banpresto? That can be a good or a bad thing
Like I said, any game that goes wifi is bound to be succesful IMO. I think if they even made Ridge Racers Wifi enabled, it would of sold. The DBZ game as well.
Ever heard of the expression "Trash in, Trash out?" Now by no means were any of the DS games really trash (other then that frogger game) but what do they expect with boring un-updated ports, dead franchises and DBZ. Blame it on the DS they say? Yes, because the number 1 selling handheld must be to blame... I wonder if there investors buy this stuff? Its laughable really...
Frankly, Pac Pix sucked, Pac 'N Roll too wasn't that smash of a game, and Ridge Racer was a blameful porting, not a new game: Bandai expected too much from these cheesy titles.
Tamagotchi actually isn't half bad, I received my review copy about a week ago. It isn't amazing, but heck--it's fun, and it's holding my attention longer than Nintendogs did. Also, Ridge Racer was NST's doing.
Well no offence Namco but, the games you guys have put out for the DS totally blow. I expected better from Namco, but come on, Ridge Racer DS is like 10 year old material, the DBZ game would of been succesful if it was online. The other games, like frogger, tamaguchi, pacnroll, pac-pix where horrible games man... Give us some good new material, and not demo like games.
They port trash over to ds, a terrible almost completely broken port, and they blame ds? I don't understand what they were expecting especially since Tamagotchi sold over a mill in just a few months.
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