Sega Sammy swung to a profit in the financial year ended March 31, despite underwhelming international game sales.
Its consumer business segment, which houses its videogame operations, saw sales decline 7.5 per cent to 121.8 billion yen ($1.3b / £892m), but operating income came in at 6.3 billion yen ($68.2m / £46.1m), compared to a loss of 941 million yen ($10.2m / £6.9m) the previous year.
“In the home videogame software industry, the demand was generally weak in the US and European markets due to the headwind like sluggish personal consumption,” the company said in its annual report. It added that domestic sales “were mostly firm thanks to streamlining the development by narrowing down the titles”.
Toy sales “remained solid” internationally but “weak” domestically, while mobile phone and PC content “sales remained brisk”.
The company sold 26,750,000 games during the 12 month period. Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games was its biggest title, moving 6,530,000 copies, ahead of Aliens Vs Predator with 1,690,000 and Bayonetta with 1,350,000. Sega’s only other million-seller was Sonic And Sega All Stars Racing with 1,070,000 sales.
Overall, Sega Sammy reported sales of 384.7 billion yen ($4.2b / £2.8b), down 10.4 per cent year-on-year. But the company swung from a loss of 22.9 billion yen ($247.8m / £167.7m) a year ago to a profit of 20.3 billion yen ($219.6m / £148.7m).
For the current fiscal year it expects company-wide sales of 400 billion yen ($4.3b / £2.9b) and a profit of 22 billion yen ($238m / £161.1m).