Konami Announces Strong Financial Results Thanks to Sports Games

Konami announced its quarterly financial results related to the first nine months of the current fiscal year, ended on Dec. 31.

As you can see in the table below, not only all profit numbers are firmly in the black, but they show significant improvement year-on-year.

We can also see a breakdown of performance by business segment.

The Digital Entertainment business, which includes video games, is both the largest contributor and the one showing the best improvement in revenue and the second best in profit.

A specific table related to the Digital Entertainment business shows its solid performance, which has been going on for quite a while.

The press release identifies the publisher’s popular sports games as a primary factor for the strong performance.

“In terms of the business results of Konami Group for the nine months ended December 31, 2018, both total revenue and operating profit exceeded those for the same period of the previous fiscal year because our soccer and baseball series titles in the Digital Entertainment business continued to perform strongly, while the Amusement business was weaker compared with its healthy sales of leading titles for the same period of the previous fiscal year.”

We also get a specific explanation for the Digital Entertainment Business itself.

“In the entertainment market, game contents continue to diversify along with functional enhancement of various devices, including mobile devices and video game consoles, and development of information and telecommunications infrastructure.

In conjunction with the changing times, the preference for enriching daily life through full and abundant experiences in personal spending has been strengthened. In the game industry, efforts are accelerating to offer new experiences through game content in various ways, including eSports, which are regarded as a form of sports competition and are attracting more and more attention.

Under such circumstances, as for mobile games in the Digital Entertainment segment, Winning Eleven 2019 (known overseas as PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2019), which was implemented a large-scale update, has received favorable reviews in the global market. Yu-Gi-Oh! DUEL LINKS has also received favorable reviews from many players following an update in the second quarter.

In the domestic market, the sales of PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL SPIRITS A (Ace) increased, which marks the third anniversary since its release. Furthermore, JIKKYOU PAWAFURU PUROYAKYU and JIKKYOU POWERFUL SOCCER, which mark the fourth and second anniversary since their releases, respectively, performed strongly through developing various measures.”

While Konami seems to have moved away from non-sports hardcore games, at least for now, it appears that it didn’t negatively influence the company’s financial performance.