Time For Some Japanese Amusement Company Earnings Reports! (Plus Gunslinger Stratos stuff)

arcadehero August 3, 2012 3
Time For Some Japanese Amusement Company Earnings Reports! (Plus Gunslinger Stratos stuff)

Nothing gets the blood running like detailed financial sheets, amiright? We never see these for Western Amusement companies, only for those based in Japan but if you are curious to know the health of a company over a short fiscal period then here you go. So here’s a link to each available one with a brief thought:

(First link provided by The Stinger Report, the rest through AM-Net)

Sega Sammy -The cuts in the home division are seen here but it’s not all DOOM for Sega as their amusement division is doing well. Not just the Pachislot stuff either but yes, their arcade games too. They are continuing to close down some amusement locations they own while opening others which pretty much everyone has been doing for a while now to streamline operations. Don’t forget the recent remodeling and opening of the Tokyo Joypolis. Unfortunately these never tell us how their Western games are doing, something I’m always curious about knowing. This is the easiest to read over since a translation was provided by Sammy.

Sega Sammy Report

Namco Bandai – Overall a good report for them, Namco America and Namco Europe are briefly mentioned and it looks like they are seeing a yearly increase but there are no really specific details on how games like Dead Heat or Pac-Man Battle Royale have been doing. Also looks like the video game arcade sales are up too but they don’t mention any specific games on this side.

PDF in Japanese

Translated Version

Konami – Seems like a mixed report and it doesn’t mention any of their Bemani titles from from what I can see(they have had Dance Evolution Arcade out as a recent title but it’s nowhere to be found in the report). They are trying to get more into the slot machine business, which when it comes to coin-op stuff overseas, that is all we will be seeing from Konami for now.

Konami Report

Capcom – As they aren’t really producing any arcade games there isn’t much to look at but mostly due to their Mario Party medal game, earnings are up for that division. They have also continued to consolidate their amusement centers and net sales are down on that side. For all of the complaints I hear leveled towards Capcom in the home market, especially about their DLC, it seems like consumers still grin and take it and reward Capcom anyways.

Capcom Report

Square Enix hasn’t released their report yet but I imagine it will be soon. In lieu of that, here is a great report by Game Watch that dives into the graphics and design of their new arcade flagship title Gunslinger Stratos. It also has a bit of discussion about the hardware behind the game as while the game uses the Taito Type X3 hardware (the first to do so) they already decided to just use their own configuration beyond the base spec to power the game at the level they desire (using an Intel Core i5-2400, 8GB of RAM and an nVidia GTX 560Ti 1 GB card) to get it running at 1920×1080/ 60 FPS. The second part gets more into the lighting and physics behind the game, which includes the use of cloth (I’ve seen cloth effects before, which are becoming more common especially in PC games). I sincerely wonder if anyone is considering working with SE on bringing this overseas, at the very least to test. Yes it is not your standard light-gun game but it still is a light-gun game and it’s unique at that where I think it would be worth a shot.

Gunslinger Stratos Graphics Part 1

Part 2

 

3 Comments »

  1. ECM August 3, 2012 at 12:48 pm - Reply

    I presume that if this were to come here, it’d be badged as a Taito product? (Yes, humor me, I know the odds are somewhere south of Nil.)

    • arcadehero August 3, 2012 at 1:09 pm - Reply

      That’s hard to say – while this isn’t the first game that they have dropped the Taito name on in favor of SE in Japan, this is the first time they have really pushed an arcade title without any Taito branding at all. So they would certainly use Taito’s networks for pushing it out in the West but whether they would elect to use their own name or Taito’s is hard to say. But with this all being said, Electrocoin in the UK has been the primary company keeping the Taito flame alive overseas so I imagine it depends on if EC thinks it’s worth it – or the other chance is one of the others over here, Raw Thrills, GlobalVR or even Namco taking a chance on it (the latter two have worked with Taito in this regard already – Namco with Chase HQ2 and GVR more recently with Frightfearland). Seeing how GVR has not produced any new video game since Frightfearland maybe they would be open to it seeing how FFL has done fairly well for them and I’m guessing Namco is going to be focusing more on Dark Escape. Both Raw Thrills and GVR have done online stuff (GVR had NASCAR Team Racing) so there is that angle to consider. AFAIK, the magic testing number would be consistent earnings above $200/wk on test – I would be very curious to see how a pair of these would do at the same location games like Terminator or Deadstorm Pirates have tested at.

      Then again there is always the power of fans. Fans writing into Taito about Dariusburst convinced them to try it out over here, along with games like Elevator Action Death Parade. But the problem on both of those is that Taito just does not have the resources to really market those games in these markets so it would do best if some other company would pick up the manufacturering slack.

      • editor August 4, 2012 at 3:16 am - Reply

        Personally, I think petitioning SE would have more chance of working than Taito!

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