Nikkei BP (a technology and business publisher) did its annual interview with Japan’s top gaming publishers. This year it interviewed Tecmo Koei CEO Kenji Matsubara.
With Tecmo and Koei merging last year you would have thought the company would be making a profit to meet the company’s expectations. Well, Tecmo Koei did manage to make ¥34.5 billion in sales with an operating income of ¥600 million this still failed to reach the company’s initial goals.
The reason for this is the poor sales of some of its major games last year. The Wii’s Sengoku Musou 3 (Samurai Warriors 3), failed to reach the 500,000 units mark compared to the 1,000,000 and 600,000 units sold for parts 1 and 2 of the franchise respectively.
Although Fist of the North Star, released on March 25 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 had fared a lot better. The title managed to ship 500,000 units in two days.
He also touched upon overseas developments for Fist. Thanks to the broadcasting of an Anime series in North America and Europe the series has become very popular in those regions. Kenji Matsubara expects big things from Tecmo Koei’s European partners for Fist.
Nikkei asked for the company’s plans for any other major releases this year. Here is what he had to say:
“I can’t share details yet, but there are games that have yet to be announced. Whether or not those will be shown to the world around the timing of E3 is to be determined.”
Nikkei also asked him about his thoughts on Nintendo’s 3DS system, in particular the target market the hardware will have. Kenji Matsubara said that “3D games don’t have a sales record yet, so I don’t know.” He went on to say that at first core gamers will accept the new hardware before casual gamers will. As core gamers usually find new gimmicks more interesting at first but then after the hype is gone it’ll be up to the content whether the new machine will have a lengthy lifespan.
