With a turnover of 531 million euros and a net profit of 258 million euros, Koei Tecmo increased by 20% compared to the previous financial year and posted the highest figures in its history, mainly thanks to the video game segment which represents a turnover of 501.5 million euros and an operating profit of 246.6 million euros over the fiscal year.
Japan remains Koei Tecmo’s most important market with sales of 242.6 million euros, ahead of the rest of Asia (169.3 million euros), America (66.3 million euros) and Europe (23 million euros). This imbalance between East and West is simply because much of Koei Tecmo’s success is based on a few very successful mobile games in Asia, especially Romance of the Three Kingdoms Ha-do and Three Kingdoms Tactics. It’s simple, iOS and Android games generated 250 million euros, against 137 million euros for console and PC games.
On traditional machines, Koei Tecmo sold 280,000 copies of Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires and 200,000 copies of Atelier Sophie 2 as of March 31. Among the older games, the publisher still highlights the success of the Nioh franchise, whose two combined titles exceeded 6 million in sales last September. On the other hand, no figures are available for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, of which Koei Tecmo is only the developer. Koei Tecmo has also developed Tôken Ranbu Warriors which made a nice score in Japan and will be released on May 17 with us on Steam and Switch.
Over the entire fiscal year, Koei Tecmo distributed 8.1 million games against 10.1 million a year earlier. The ratio of games sold for download increased to 58% (4.68 million). Added to this are 128 million downloads of mobile games, compared to 99 million downloads last year, a sharp increase that we owe to the Asian markets.
Koei Tecmo exceeded the bar of 2,000 employees during this fiscal year: they are now 2,063 working for the group, 80 more than last year. As at Bandai Namco and Capcom, these employees have recently been better rewarded. In the case of Koei Tecmo, there is talk of a starting salary raised to 290,000 yen (2,112 euros) for young graduates and a general increase of 23% in monthly pay for others.
A salary increase that may allow developers to surpass themselves to achieve the objectives set by the publisher. For the new current fiscal year, Koei Tecmo is aiming for a new record turnover (560 million euros) but a decline in net profit (230 million euros). “We simultaneously expect increased revenue and decreased earnings due to the long-term planned development of several major titles“, can we read.
A new major license still in development
The next big cartridge is also called Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes which will debut on June 24, 2022 on Switch, in line with its previous successful collaborations with Nintendo. The strategy game Nobunaga’s Ambition: Rebirth will then be released on July 21 on PS4, Switch and Steam.
We’ve known it for a while, one of Koei Tecmo’s big projects is to release a new license capable of exceeding 5 million sales in the next two or three years. The publisher has also set itself the objective of releasing at least one game each year capable of exceeding 2 million sales. On mobile, Koei Tecmo aims to run a game that brings in at least 2 billion yen each month (14.5 million euros).
The group has also set itself other objectives such as improving the quality of its in-house productions by strengthening its Katana Engine, founding an operational office in Shanghai to deepen the Chinese vein or even produce titles in genres that it does not has not yet explored, especially the battle royale. Don’t sigh, we’re escaping NFTs for the moment.