Bandai Namco achieves record Q1 sales, but Digital segment operating profit drops 30.9%

Bandai Namco opened its fiscal year with record group-wide results, but the games business was softer than the headline numbers suggest. For the three months ending March 31, 2026, net sales reached ¥328.4 billion and operating profit climbed to ¥69.2 billion, helped by strong Toys and Hobby performance, amusement facilities, and a tariff refund.

The Digital segment, which covers games, moved in the opposite direction. Sales fell 15.6% year-on-year to ¥90.9 billion, while operating profit dropped 30.9% to ¥15 billion. The company tied the decline to fewer title releases than the same period last year, when it shipped 15 titles including a major release; this quarter it released just two new home console games and sold 6.9 million units.

That matters because Bandai Namco is still a major publisher with a broad portfolio spanning premium console, mobile, and network content. Core game app titles stayed popular, but the company is explicitly talking about strengthening development capabilities and building a more optimized title portfolio, which usually means tighter release planning, better pipeline discipline, and more pressure on teams to hit the right mix of evergreen and tentpole content.

The half-year outlook for Digital Contents has been revised upward versus the previous forecast, but it still points to a year-over-year decline. Bandai Namco now expects ¥200 billion in sales and ¥26.5 billion in operating profit for the half, while leaving the full-year forecast unchanged for now and planning to reassess against market conditions, fan demand, and the performance of...