Konami Has "High Hopes For The Game's Industry" After A Strong First Quarter

Today Konami released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2018, which ended on June 30th, 2017. The company did shockingly well, considering their lack of major western releases in the quarter, with the company's revenue being up a nice 12.8%, operating profit being up 34.2%, and profit before income tax being 43.3%. To put it mildly, Konami has had an incredibly strong first quarter, especially when you look at those numbers over the same time period from the previous year.

And that strong performance has lead the company to believe that "the preference for enriching daily life through full and abundant experiences in personal spending has been strengthened. In that context, there are high hopes for the game industry in various situations, including in offering new experiences through game contents as points of contact between customers and games." Which is pretty good news for Konami.

A detailed breakdown of the performance of the gaming business mentions strong sales for mobile games, and robust continued sales for Super Bomberman R and Pro Evolution Soccer 2017. Yes, despite never being able to come quite close to the popularity of EA's FIFA 17 abroad, Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 was pretty successful in the Asian market. Which, actually makes Konami's major PES push at western gaming trade shows and conventions make sense. If they can get Pro Evo to do even half as well as FIFA, that'd be a pretty large profit share for the company without having to make major changes for a worldwide release.

Within the Asian market, both Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu and Professional Baseball Spirits A (Ace) have continued to receive favorable reviews, which led to some solid sales on both titles. In the global markets, Winning Eleven Club Manager (better known abroad as PES Club Manager) and Star Wars: Force Collection showed continued stable performance."As for computer and video games, various titles continued to remain robust, including Super Bomberman R, Winning Eleven 2017 (known overseas as Pro Evolution Soccer 2017) and Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu 2016. Starting in May 2017, we also launched Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu Championship 2017. This software is an exclusive download for the "Pawapuro Championships 2017" eSports tournament to be held nationwide in Japan from August 2017 and is available for many customers to enjoy."

So, Konami's games have done pretty well, but as we've expected, most of their profits come off the domestic market from Asian-exclusive titles.

The company's outlook for the full fiscal year, which ends on March 31st, 2018, has pinned their hopes on the success of their mobile titles and PES 2018.

As for mobile games, the total number of registered users of all contents we developed continues to increase steadily. Those game titles include Yu-Gi-Oh!
Duel Links, which surpassed 45 million downloads and was released in South Korea beginning in April 2017, Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu, which surpassed 32 million downloads in July 2017, and Winning Eleven 2017 (known overseas as PES 2017 -Pro Evolution Soccer-), which surpassed 30 million downloads and launched globally in May 2017. We will strive to provide content that enables us to deliver pleasure to customers in various regions.
As for card games, at the "Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2017" to be held in August 2017, we will also host a Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links mobile game division this year in order to promote the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game series further.

As for computer and video games, we released 100% Pascal (Pasukaru) Sensei Perfect Paint Bombers for Nintendo 3DSTM in July 2017 for domestic market and will release the latest title in the Winning Eleven series, Winning Eleven 2018 (known overseas as Pro Evolution Soccer 2018), in September 2017 for global market. We will pursue strong game characteristics that enable customers to continuously have fun, including holding the eSports event "PES League," in which anyone can participate, and "Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2017."

If you'd like to peruse the report for yourself, you can do so here.