Half-year revs rise, profits fall at Konami

Japanese publisher Konami today released its financial results for the first six months of its fiscal year, heralding increased revenues over those of the same period last year, but a decrease in net profit.

For the six months ended September 30, 2006, Konami reported net revenues of 119.6 billion yen ($1 billion), up from last year's first-half take of 111.9 billion yen (about $951 million). However, the publisher didn't get to keep as much of that money, as its net income for the period was down from to 5.1 billion yen ($43 million) from almost 7 billion yen ($59 million) previously.

In defense, Konami pointed out that the previous year's profit was driven by a 6.9 billion yen ($58 million) sale of its stake in Takara (representing more than 22 percent of the company) in April 2005. Taking that out of the equation, the company's profit would have increased alongside its revenues for the six-month span.

But no matter how one looks at the numbers, the publisher's sales and profits were down for the digital entertainment division that includes its gaming operations. That division reaped 63.5 billion yen ($540 million), down from 66.7 billion yen ($567 million) for the April-September period of 2005, while its profits sagged year-over-year from 13 billion yen ($110 million) to 11.4 billion yen ($97 million).

As for specific games, Konami pegged the latest entries in the Winning Eleven and Jikkyou Pawafuru Puro Yakyu baseball series as steady performers, while North American sales of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA were described as "firm."