'Favorable' overseas sales steer Bandai Namco to solid quarter

Dark Souls publisher Bandai Namco's latest financials show a healthy increase in both sales and profits.

For the company as a whole, net sales for the quarter ended June 30 received a 5.4 percent boost, rising to 144 billion yen ($1.4 billion). 

Profit also rose to 18.5 billion yen ($180.4 million) from 13.9 billion yen ($135.5 million) -- a year-over-year increase of 32.6 percent. 

Looking at the company's video game business, the publisher shipped 7.58 million units worldwide this quarter, 3.27 million of which heralded from the U.S.. For context, it had only shipped 6.99 million units globally at this point last year.  

Despite that growth, game revenue actually fell slightly to 29.7 billion yen ($289.6 million) from 31.7 billion yen ($309.1 million), although Bandai isn't concerned by the dip. 

Instead the publisher is pleased with the aforementioned overseas push, noting the "favorable" sales of Dark Souls III -- which shipped over 3 million copies in under two months.

With that in mind, the company is now forecasting sales of 580 billion yen ($5.65 billion) and profits of 35 billion yen ($314.3 million) for the end of this fiscal year on March 31, 2017.