Bandai Namco Leads Japanese Revenues In 2011

Bandai Namco is leading in revenues for boxed retail game software in Japan for the year so far, thanks to the high profile release of 2nd Super Robot Wars Z for the PSP in April. According to a report from Japan's Famitsu, revenues from Bandai Namco games (known in this country as Namco Bandai) represented 16.7 percent of total software revenues for the year. Also contributing to that high percentage was PSP adventure game Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii wake ga Nai Portable, based on a popular series of youth novels. The revenue leader for the same period last year was Nintendo. The company dropped only to second place in the current period, but that drop represents a 41.5 percent decline in revenues, due to rapidly declining Wii sales and its self-professed "disappointing" 3DS launch. The steepest decline of all came from Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix, which saw an approximate 60 percent revenue drop. On the bright side, Level-5's revenues rose over 300 percent from those reported last year, thanks to the 3DS game Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle and new IP Little Battler Xperience for the PSP. The full list of the top ten Japanese game publishers by revenue for the first half of 2011 follows: 1. Bandai Namco (16.7 percent) 2. Nintendo (15.5 percent) 3. Square Enix (8.2 percent) 4. Capcom (7.9 percent) 5. Koei Tecmo (7.1 percent) 6. Konami 7. Sega 8. Level-5 9. Sony Computer Entertainment 10. Spike