Namco Bandai records big half-year profit

Publisher Namco Bandai has announced healthy profits for the first half of this financial year, boosted by strong software sales for a number of Japanese titles.

PlayStation 3 role-player Tales of Xillia leads the charge with 740,000 copies sold since its Japanese launch in September, while PSP dating game AKB1/48 2 notched up 380,000 units.

Worldwide, Namco Bandai sold 7.2 million units of software, up 100,000 from last financial year. 4 million were sold in Japan, 1.9 in the US and 1 million in Europe.

The company's gaming division posted revenues of 86.7 billion yen (£694m), up 121.4 per cent from last year.

Namco Bandai as a whole ended the first half of the financial year in a far improved position to last year, with profits of 8 billion yen (£64.1m) compared to losses of 1.9 billion yen (£15.22m) this time twelve months ago.

It wasn't just Japanese titles doing well, although not mentioned in its financial report, Namco Bandai announced earlier today it had shipped 1.5 million copies of tough-as-nails adventure Dark Souls.