Konami Is Betting on Solid Snake

As most important videogame companies wrap up their accounting for the fiscal year of 2008, which ended on March 31, more and more reports regarding their financial status surface. After giants like Activision and Electronic Arts, not to mention Sony, have made their reports public, publisher Konami, the company that has brought us the delighting Metal Gear Solid series, is also laying its (finance-related) cards on the table for all to see.

Fiscal 2008 was a good year for the company. According to the reports of the publisher, revenue increased by 6.1% and reached 2.8 billion dollars. The same growth rate was reported for 2007 and the company managers hope to increase it in fiscal 2009.

The company also managed to go out of the red zone when it comes to profit. The 2007 reported profits had been disappointing, marked as they were by a large drop, but 2008 saw profits rise by 13% and reaching 175 million dollars.

Digital Entertainment, which is the videogames arm of the Tokyo based company, was by far the best performer in the group. 1.7 billion dollars of the revenue was brought in by game sales, while most of the profit also came from the games division. Konami singled out titles like Proyakyu Spirits 4, Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu 14, J. League Winning Eleven 2007 Club Championship and World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 as the main revenue creators. Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party, which was released for the Wii in September of 2007, is one of the most important games on the North American market.

This year, the main launch from Konami will be Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which will come to the PlayStation 3 on June 12. Konami is expecting big sales for the title and, on the back of revenue from it, hopes to reach sales of 3.1 billion in fiscal 2009 with profits exceeding those posted for last year.

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