It seems Namco isn't doing as well as it hoped, getting hit the most by its video game division.
While most of their divisions didn't do that well, Namco put a large share of the blame on the sales of their major video game titles, but explicitly excluding Tekken.
Namco did share their plan for getting back on track though. It has changes to every division, but I only included the video game relevant stuff here. Their overall plan seems to be to increase quality and adapt their title slate to the changing market tastes.
Sources:
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/E383AAE382B9E382BFE383BCE38388E383AAE383AAE383BCE3.pdf
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/2009E5B9B4E5BAA6EFBC93QE79FADE4BFA1E88BB1E8AA9EE78.pdf
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/2009203Q20E8A39CE8B6B3E8B387E69699EFBC88E88BB1E789.pdf
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/E6A5ADE7B8BEE4BA88E683B3E381AEE4BFAEE6ADA3EFBC88E8.pdf
Thanks to bttb for finding Namco's IR information.
While most of their divisions didn't do that well, Namco put a large share of the blame on the sales of their major video game titles, but explicitly excluding Tekken.
Namco did share their plan for getting back on track though. It has changes to every division, but I only included the video game relevant stuff here. Their overall plan seems to be to increase quality and adapt their title slate to the changing market tastes.
Namco Bandai said:②Reasons for the Recording Extraordinary Losses and the Revision
Consolidated financial results show that the BANDAI NAMCO Group generally faced an uphill battle in the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 2010 (April 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009), during which market conditions for the Group remained severe, despite steady results achieved in sales of long-established character toys in the Toys and Hobby business and arcade game machines in the Game Contents business. In the Game Contents business in particular, sales fell below projections given weak market conditions for most of major home game software titles except Tekken 6, the largest title released in the current fiscal year, leading to weak results for the segment. Moreover, both the Visual and Music Content business and the Amusement Facility business posted sluggish results; the former owing to the downsizing of the visual package software market and the latter reflecting the significant effects of a slump in personal consumption.
Namco Bandai said:・Review of the optimum personnel structure
As a part of reviewing the optimum number of personnel in each business, through the use of solicitations for voluntary retirement at NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. and the existing voluntary early retirement programs at other companies, we expect that by the end of FY2011.3, the number of employees, currently about 7000, will be decreased by about 630, equivalent to about 10% of the Group-wide workforce. This is expected to reduce consolidated personnel expenditure in the next fiscal year by approximately ¥3.5 billion.
Namco Bandai said:・Improved quality in home game software
As well as bolstering quality control in Japan to improve development quality at the Worldwide Studio (based in Japan and the United States) that was introduced in April 2009, by developing functions to organize titles and resource allocation control through a portfolio map, we will respond to the changing market environment and user preferences in a speedy fashion. In the development of home game software as well, we will restructure organizations across the Production Group and Publisher Function, and work to create and deploy content based on the overall strategy for the Content SBU.
Sources:
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/E383AAE382B9E382BFE383BCE38388E383AAE383AAE383BCE3.pdf
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/2009E5B9B4E5BAA6EFBC93QE79FADE4BFA1E88BB1E8AA9EE78.pdf
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/2009203Q20E8A39CE8B6B3E8B387E69699EFBC88E88BB1E789.pdf
http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/E6A5ADE7B8BEE4BA88E683B3E381AEE4BFAEE6ADA3EFBC88E8.pdf
Thanks to bttb for finding Namco's IR information.