Konami Profits Down, Blames Anemic Results On Card Game Business

Despite rising revenues, Konami's group net profits for the first half of the fiscal year plunged 78% from last year. The cause of this drop wasn't caused by its videogame business, however: Konami blamed the drop in profits on its card game business, saying that sales of its high-margin YU-GI-OH! card game were off by more than 50%. As a result, Konami's group net profit dropped to 2.5 billion yen for the six months through September, compared to 11.6 billion yen last year -- an unusual result considering that the company's total sales for the period rose almost 20%. The company said it would still hit its group net profit goal of 17.5 billion yen for the year, though. As a result of its increasingly anemic card game sales, Konami said it will focus on its successful videogame business -- and the company expects to sell 3.4 million copies of Metal Gear Solid 2 alone.