Bandai Namco has revised its sales projections upward for the 2024-25 fiscal year, and the reason has a lot to do with the success of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
In a financial notice, Bandai Namco says it’s revising its projections both for the period between April 1st and September 30th and for the year as a whole due to gains across several areas of its business.
These gains include Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree becoming “a hit in markets worldwide“, as well as repeat sales for the base game Elden Ring performing “well”.
That’s arguably to be expected; if a major DLC is about to launch for a game that’s already successful, it stands to reason more people will be tempted to check out the base game.
Bandai Namco’s perspective is borne out by the evidence, too. In the run-up to Shadow of the Erdtree‘s release, sales of Elden Ring jumped to 25 million, demonstrating that lots of people were picking up the base game in anticipation of its expansion.
US sales data also showed that Elden Ring topped sales charts in June, and in October, the game’s developer FromSoftware raised its base employee salaries by 12%.
All of this is to say that Bandai Namco clearly had a massive hit on its hands this year, and it’s caused the company to raise its yearly sales projection from 1.08 billion yen to 1.15 billion, a change that will also result in a boost of 39.1% to operating profit.
Various other aspects of Bandai Namco’s business, including its toys and hobby section, its IP division, and its amusements, also contributed to the boost in sales expectations. All told, it seems Bandai Namco is going to have a slightly better year than it initially expected.
As for the present, Bandai Namco has just released the action RPG Unknown 9: Awakening, and it’s also gearing up to launch Supermassive Games’ Little Nightmares 3 next year. We’ll have to wait and see what impact these games have on the company’s future financial prospects.
