Senran Kagura Developers Working on New IP; Rune Factory 5 Has Shipped Over 500,000 Copies

Today Marvelous Entertainment shared its financial results for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2022.

We learn that the company’s net sales and operating profit for the company as a whole saw a modest increase mostly driven by video games.

That being said, it was only consumer (consoles, PC, and arcade) games that actually performed well showing growth in both sales and profits, while mobile games declined sharply.

Specifically, speaking of mobile games, older titles like Shinobi Master: Senran Kagura New Link, Logres of Swords and Sorcery: Goddess of Ancient, Browser Sangokushi dropped in performance simply because they’re pretty old by now. The new game The Thousand Musketeers: Rhodoknight pretty much flopped and Marvelous is going to try to attract new users via promotional measures scheduled for May.

On the front of consumer games, sales of Rune Factory 5 and older games were strong both in Japan and overseas. Rune Factory 5 specifically sold over 500,000 units.

The arcade game Pokemon Mezastar also contributed significantly to the business’ earning.

Marvelous is going to reorganize its businesses starting with this fiscal year. The Online Game Business is going to be renamed Digital Contents Business including both consumer and mobile games, while what’s left of the Consumer Game Business (the part that makes arcade games like Pokemon Mezastar) is going to be spun into the Amusement Business. The Audio & Visual business (which works on anime, music, and live shows) is going to remain untouched.

Looking at the future of the newly-named Digital Contents Business, besides the recently announced Deadcraft which is releasing simultaneously worldwide, and the “juvenile JRPG” Loop8 (about which a western release wasn’t yet confirmed), we hear about the future of Honey Parade Games.

The brand, which is known for its work on the Senran Kagura series, is working on a new and original IP for mobile platforms coming before March 2023.

It’s worth mentioning that this is a completely separate project compared to the one by Honey Parade founder and former Senran Kagura producer Kenichiro Takaki, who left the company a while ago to work for Cygames.

If you’d like to compare these results with historical data, you can check out the dedicated article for the previous quarter, published in January.