Marvelous Entertainment revised their forecasts for the end of the fiscal year a few days ago, and are now mostly expecting bad news :
[previous projection -> current projection]
Net sales :
12.5 billion yens -> 10.0 billion yens
Operating profit :
0.3 billion yens -> - 1.3 billion yens (loss)
Ordinary profit :
0.2 billion yens -> - 1.3 billion yens (loss)
Net profit :
0.1 billion yens -> - 1.3 billion yens (loss)
Dividend :
625 yens -> None
They blame these poor projected results on the global economic slump, especially in Europe and America but also in Japan, and on the subsequently sluggish videogame marketplace, which already led many big stores and smaller, specialist stores to close shops or to go bankrupt. Due to this, they say, the number of orders for their upcoming title, as well as for their major titles dramatically decreased following the end of last year.
They also strategically delayed a number of titles to the next period - beyond March of this year - in every territory (2 in Japan, 3 in Europe, 1 in America).
For reference, last year, more than 25% of Marvelous total game sales came from their overseas business, Europe taking the majority of the share. Given this, it's pretty easy to understand how deeply they'd be struck by the economic downturn in the West.
Sources :
1,
2
