Atlus in Dire Straits, Huge Loss Forecast
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Mar 12, 2009 01:00 JST
- Tags: Arcade Gaming, Atlus, Business, Persona, RPG, Shin Megami Tensei
Quality RPG producer Atlus, best known for the blockbuster Megami Tensei series, is in dire financial straits, and has forecast huge losses as a result of worsening financial performance and the disposal of one of its failing lines of business.
For the accounting period ending in July, 2009, the company has revised its forecast performance from a profit of ¥100 million ($1 million) to a loss of ¥2.400 billion ($24 million). Their last reported results were a profit of ¥500 million.
Their stock has been falling precipitously as a result.
Looking at their financial reports, much of the loss appears to be of an extraordinary nature, stemming from their withdrawal from arcade-type games, where by their own admission things had not been going well.
Overall sales forecasts are also down however, with a reduction to ¥20 billion, an 11% reduction. Their estimate of pre-tax operating profit has been slashed 72%, to a mere ¥400 million.
Via Sakura Financial News. You can read the report here.
The extreme nature of their projected loss appears to stem from their withdrawal from certain markets, so it may be that their core business of video games is not in mortal danger, although the reduction in ordinary profits and sales seems to suggest that they may be in even deeper trouble.
Fans will doubtless be hoping that they stabilise matters quickly…
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They make great games hope they can pull it together.
What happened with all this bad news??
The sales didn't performed? Where's the fans??
Or are you Atlus to greedy?? It's the financial statistic didn't met the projected profit margin??
>.<
Oh, HELL NO.
Dear Global Recession: SPARE ATLUS! TAKE ANYBODY BUT ATLUS!
TAKE ACTIVISION INSTEAD!
Yeah, no kidding!
Agreed.
Make that EA...
I vote THQ.
I vote blizzard, maybe they'll take the WoW servers down XD
whoa, i would vote for activision too xD
Take EA! especially EA Sport section.
We can go out in the open and play sports ourselves.
Yeah EA! we don't need the Sims!
We have our REAL life ! XD
Atlus mostly publishes, so it shouldnt be too difficult for them to continue on. Just have to be more frugal with the games they acquire publishing rights to. Not like they drop millions on dev fees all the time like most studios.
Or, they could just finance a new fucking Ogre Battle game. Whatever works.
^That second-to-last sentence. Right there.
Double Plus Agreed.
Damn, that sucks.
Well I'll be buying The Dark Spire, so there's $30 USD for them <.<
Persona 5 with Bro-dating will save them!
this is depressing news but i know that Atlus will get pass this ordeal ^^
A world bereft of Shin Megami Tensei is like a world without hot dogs. I just can't imagine it without either of them.
Bad analogy, I know. But I hope Atlus gets back on its feet and doesn't resort to a merger. At least they didn't make a bad movie that would sink them further.
I'd love to help out, but I only play PC games.
Broaden your interests.
I myself, mainly play PC games as well, but I do enjoy a good console game every once in a while.
Hell, I enjoy ANY game as long as it's fun.
Except most casual shit.
monayss is most likely teh problem ma frienz XD
missed out one good generation of console gaming O_Q
wow, thats a shocker. I thought they were doing well because of the shin megami tensei games, the trauma center games, all of those RPG games on the DS, and the anime, persona: trinity soul.
Persona 5 with ero...
FUND IT.
..and playable LOLI.
I support this idea wholeheartedly, GET ON IT ATLUS!! And i really hope they dont go under before it happens :x
I'll do my bit, pre-ordered P4, can't wait for Friday to come round.
Not getting it until Friday? Ouch.
I underestimate how poorly game companies treat their European market.
there's a European market?
theres a place called europe?
i sure hope there game division isn't seriously affected, i love all there disgaea and persona games.
FACT: Atlus's only involvement with the Disgaea series was localization on the first one. The second and third were localized by the developer, Nippon Ichi. (Their American subsidiary, but whateever.)
i think that's part of the problem, that more and more japanese companies set up their own american companies to sell games.
And nothing of value was lost.
And bullshit RPG companies like Square-Enix are still okay? This world is an eyesore, disappear, etc.
At least that new Raidou Kuzunoha and P1 remake is out soon, I'll be all over those on US release date.
what bullshit you talking about?
Squeenix. That bullshit.
theres nothing a mmo cant fix
i can smell a reality show
hmmmm persona online, i'd play it
There is a SMT online.
They are the only serious US publishers of Japanese RPG to US market, so if they tank, it's pretty means no more RPG for me, and we all know how good US-made RPG is....(certain variable, moonwalking in the air character from nuclear Apocalypse comes to mind) Shudder in terror.
This is bad news. I really love ATLUS games. Hope they come up with a good strategy to get back in track.
I wish they´d release Trauma Center 2(DS) in Europe...
Know how to increase profits?? More Etrian Odysseys, Izuna games, and Rondo of Sword!!!
Seriously...Atlus is one of the ONLY company that makes games that has appealing graphics AND satisfying difficulties these days...
Disgaea,make it for pc.
Get huge profits $$$$$$$$$$$!
And nothing of value was lost.
Goodbye Fatlus.
atlus needs to... FOCUS ON THE WII, DAMMIT.
they're bleeding money because they're stupid enough to jump on the HD bandwagon, that doesn't even sell in Japan.
Screw it.
Dude .. they are stupid enough to jump on the HD bandwagon?
They've released whole three games on the Xbox360, all of them simply published by them.
Most (if not all)of the games they are releasing/developing (that I know of) are for the DS/PsP/Ps2.
Unlike Square-Enix ...
NO, the Wii sucks. I don't have HD, but the Wii srsly sucks.
Want to know how to save them?
Stop pirating their shit. (You know who you are)
like most people?
I suppose you're also against buying their games pre-owned and renting their games? That has exactly the same effect.
That would only happen if Atlus bring back the Dual-Language Audio option...
This .... actually concerns me quite greatly.
me too
so now its also starting to suggest that the financial crisis is also now hitting game publishers... so it wont be surprising if square-enix breaks too....
Are people forgetting that Atlus USA and Atlus Jp are pretty much different entities?
This possibly could be a big one-time loss because of pulling out of "arcade-type games." But, I do hope that Atlus Japan sorts out there financial sitation.
now this IS bad news for me...
i always thought of atlus as an underdog in the gaming market always coming up with unique games that only catches the interest of experienced gamers...
those kinds are the only ones who can appreciate the works on atlus...
some just looking for games that has great graphics yet no originality but atlus was different..its like you could really separate other games theirs..
im not much fan of final fantasy if you know what i
mean...
im always the type whos looking for wierd yet unique games...not a fan of mainstream stuff...
I hope everything gets better for them as Atlus became the only game developer/publisher I've come care about since Squaresoft went down the toilet. They've been outputting games like crazy lately and hopefully they'll make enough sales to get them back on track.
Say it isnt sooooo!!!!!! This settles it, screw college funding, im helping support Atlus!! (edumacation is over-rated anyways)
Am I to understand that Atlas has Shrugged?
*dodges tomatoe*
IT wasn't that bad of a book.
No, please, no. I really like some of their titles. One of the few developers/publishers to still have the guts to release hard games in this generation. Baroque is one of my favourites for the Wii (although admittedly not as good as the original Saturn/PSX game).
If Sting also goes down under, I'm going to declare this the worst gen ever.
Thats too bad. Economy spares no one. Well, I'm already planning to get some Atlus games when they release so hopefully I'm helping.
C'mon Atlus!! Bring back the dual-audio option~~ That way, ppl won't be modding and downloading the Undub version!
I don't think they can cram much more onto the game disc... And i always thought Atlus had some pretty good dubs.
They'll make a quick comeback. No worries, folks. Although I must say that this news alarmed me much more than any other economy-related announcement ever has, perhaps disturbingly!
Atlus better not die. I love the megaten games.
Same here, without Atlus the video games's world would be not the same!
I enjoyed a Megaten more than a Final Fantasy or a Dragon Quest!
I hope they don't end like SNK.
Noooo! Atlus D:
OH NO!!!!
Where am I supposed to get my fully translated sleeper hits if they shut down??
NEVER! *shudders*
I think Atlus's problem is that they produce too many games that feel like derivatives of previous games under their label. No need to produce games every two minutes, just a good game every once in awhile. They have quality titles, but I feel they emphasize quantity a little too much.