DOA4 Delay Hurts Tecmo Results

Japanese-headquartered game publisher and developer Tecmo has reported its fiscal year 2005 results, for the period ended December 31st, and, according to the results as translated by consumer site GameSpot, the company's net sales surged but overall profit dipped. The main reason for the net profit decrease from 817 million yen ($6.89 million) to 617 million yen ($5.21 million) was the delay of much-anticipated Xbox 360 title Dead Or Alive 4, one of Tecmo's major franchises, which eventually shipped on December 29th, 2005. This meant that the company only managed to ship around 70,000 copies of Dead Or Alive 4 within 2005, though Western sales of the title in the New Year appear to have been brisk, despite the continuing Xbox 360 hardware shortage. In addition, Tecmo reported that both Tokobot for PSP and Monster Farm 5 for PlayStation 3 were mentioned as seeing disappointing results within 2005, a situation that can't be related to their release dates. However, the company's revenues were up from 7.9 billion yen ($67 billion) to 12.2 billion yen ($103 million), partly thanks to continuing operations outside the console game business, particularly in the mobile and pachinko sectors, and going forward, Tecmo will particularly focus on its pachinko games, online titles, and mobile division in the future, though it will continue to release game titles, with 13 SKUs due out in 2006. For 2006, the Ninja Gaiden creator is predicting sales of 11.8 billion yen ($99.6 million, down 3.8 percent), and net profit of 550 million yen ($46 million, down 10.8 percent), as it continues to transition its business model.