Bandai Namco, a prominent Japanese game publisher, is reportedly pushing 15% of its Tokyo staff to resign amidst corporate restructuring. Despite the recent success of Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero, which sold over 3 million units in just 24 hours, the company has decided to take drastic measures that include layoffs and project cancellations.
According to Bloomberg (thanks Game Developer), Bandai Namco has asked around 200 employees from its Tokyo office to voluntarily resign. This move seems to be a response to financial struggles in their online division, which recently posted a net loss of ¥8.2 billion (approximately $51.35 million). Employees forced into resignation reportedly had their work responsibilities removed, with almost 100 of them already leaving the company.
Bloomberg also revealed that Bandai Namco has canceled at least two major projects, including collaborations with Nintendo, and upcoming Dragon Ball and One Piece games. This decision has caused concern within the gaming community, especially given the booming Japanese game market, projected to grow annually by 6.66% until 2029.
The company’s struggles are attributed to the underperformance of live-service games such as Blue Protocol and Gundam Evolution. Despite these challenges, Bandai Namco remains a key player in the gaming industry, with a stronghold in single-player games that remain popular among various age groups.
In recent months, gamers have been closely monitoring Nintendo Switch sales as the console edges…
Despite Helldivers II's popularity, fans have long felt the game lacked collaborations. Nearly a year…
The anti-cheat system in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone has not met…
The NVIDIA app, which recently replaced GeForce Experience, has gained popularity for its revamped interface…
AMD is gearing up to expand its CPU lineup in early 2025, with recent leaks…
Following the leak of AMD's flagship laptop CPU, another processor from the AMD Kraken Point…
