Nippon Ichi operating profit down 97.5%

[prowler]

Big fan of Nippon Ichi Software? Bad news. The developer behind the Disgaea series, A Witch's Tale, and the soon-to-be released Last Rebellion has announced their financial earnings, and dood, things aren't looking pretty.

In 2009, the developer released 10 titles domestically and 12 overseas, most of them for the PSP and Nintendo DS. Some of the more familiar North American releases include Disgaea Infinite (PSP), Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days (PSP), Prinny: CIRBTH (PSP), Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy (PS2), and Cross Edge (PS3). The DS titles were mostly Japan-only.

Still, with that lineup, Nippon Ichi reported that their operating profit for the first nine months of the fiscal year is down a whopping 97.5% year on year. That, doods, is worrisome. On a relatively more positive note, the total consolidated sales for the last three quarters in only down 0.1%.

Sauce

Piracy is bad.

 

[emigre]

Fucking hell! That really isn't good; I'm glad I bought Disgea 3 now and gave them some support.

 

[raulpica]

Maybe they should stop remaking the same games, especially when they were released just some years ago.

And Prinny was... BAD. I was expecting a lot more from that game.

 

[grimtooth]

Maybe they should stop remaking the same games, especially when they were released just some years ago.

And Prinny was... BAD. I was expecting a lot more from that game.

agree 100%, too bad it works for 90% of the video game companies. :-P

 

[shakirmoledina]

the problem is tht they concentrated to much on high graphics systems rather than most used systems ie. DS or Xbox (at tht moment)
they could change strategies and try shifting more games from PSP to DS but keep the PS3 as it is

 

[Isabelyes]

Noo! I just started to like Disgaea yesterday!

 

[Hop2089]

I think it's their prices, Cross Edge was nearly $80 US when released in Japan, Trinity Universe as well. What's worse is that even their PSP games are too expensive there, the average price for a PSP game is 5490 yen, there games tend to be 6490 yen and the target audience can't afford this (children and teens). I can see certain games like Gundam on the PSP being priced at 6490 yen, it sells like hotcakes, demand is much higher, and there are 2-3 generations of fans in Japan plus any fans in the states who import the games and the target audience for them are late teens, young adults to middle age who could afford the high price. As for the US, Nippon Ichi games are still pretty obscure here and not as popular unlike in Japan, due the constant usage of anime and character ages especially for female characters (A lot of people in the US resent playing as an 10 year old girl in a game).

 

[TyRaNtM]

The problem here is that Nippon Ichi launched so much games for PSP and very few games for DS.

 

[soulfire]

because the ds can't handle the games of nis

 

[referencer]

(A lot of people in the US resent playing as an 10 year old girl in a game).

I personally only buy games that allow me to play as a ten-year-old girl.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

because the ds can't handle the games of nis

More like the other way around. Outside of Disgea DS, most NIS games for the DS have been underwhelming, and that's their fault. Anyway, the DS wouldn't cause such a large profit fall, since they've only had a pinch of games for the DS compared to the huge amounts they've made for the PSP and the like.

Well, NIS has only one major franchise, Disgea, and they can't run on that alone. They have other games, yes, but it's just not enough. I'm surprised they aren't absorbed into a large publishing company and made a subsidiary developer.

And as Hop said, overpricing their games doesn't help.

 

[Jaems]

They do publish a lot of bad games (Cross Edge, Atelier Iris).
And a lot of their games tend to be too similar (Makai Kingdom, Phantom Brave).

 

[SPH73]

I guess all the wannabe pedos didn't buy enough copies of Disgaea.

3rd party companies that bet on PSP lost their shirts. Serves them right. The should have paid more attention when Sony used piracy to promote the PSP. Shit, I learned to mod my PSP on the official sony message boards. And the tutorial was written by a mod who also happened to be a SCEA employee. Devs gotta love this like that.

 

[megawalk]

hopefully things will change when Cross Edge Dash will be floating around the stores internationally... and NIS' mystery dungeon and classic dungeon games would be a interesting game too.
hopefully NIS can up their profits back to 100% again

 

[juggernaut911]

Never heard of any of those games and I don't have a Sony console so I'm guilt free!

 

[Cermage]

maybe this'll teach them to stop making such generic games. never really been a fan of NIS games, but i heavily enjoyed Badman.

 

[Bladexdsl]

there's their problem they released most of the games on the psp!

 

[Magoo222]

This isn't one of those cases where they had a phenomenal 2008, and compared to that 2009 is looking bad? Did they have a Massive title in 2008?

 

[prowler]

This isn't one of those cases where they had a phenomenal 2008, and compared to that 2009 is looking bad? Did they have a Massive title in 2008?

Disgaea 3 was out in 2008.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

Oh god no. NIS is one of my favourite developers, I love the Disgaea games and everything that uses the same universe (like Prinny: CIRBTH

). I'd be really sad if they were gone...