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We have not changed the strategic pillars.
Today I will not explain the individual items provided here as it is reflected in all business operation.
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This shows the breakdown of sales within the Digital Entertainment segment.
As previously mentioned, this is supplemental information and the name of the sub-segment is temporary.
The business segment is classified into 3 sub-segments – MMO, HD, and Social – based on the different business challenges of these varying fields. Different challenges require different countermeasures and it is best if you could view it as a grouping of our internal organizations.
Firstly, on MMO. In addition to FINAL FANTASY (“FF”) XI and FFXIV, DRAGON QUEST (“DQ”) X will be released in the current fiscal year. FANTASY EARTH ZERO, which is a licensing-out title, is also included. Originally, we expected this area to be a stable revenue source. When this area was classified as Online business segment in the past, operating profit of ¥5.0 billion to ¥6.0 billion was generated mainly by FFXI, and even peaked at ¥6.8 billion. As MMO requires substantial amounts of up-front investment and operational expenses, it was our plan for the near future to put our efforts into our assured two IP titles – FFXIV and DQX – and expect an operating profit of ¥10.0 billion combined. It was our goal to generate stable revenue from MMO first and then to increase opportunities of revenue by changing the business model for HD games, and on top of them, to aim for the upside on the new genre of games. However, upon the launch of FFXIV in 2010, we experienced a ‘regretful hit.’
For the revitalization of the FF brand, we decided not to shutdown FFXIV and to continue the services while adding improvements at the same time as rebuilding the game from scratch.
As a result of the decision we made, it was inevitable to move the resources within the HD game to FFXIV and new title releases have suffered for 2 to 3 years.
The progress of the rebuild has been very well, and is ready to be launched in the current fiscal year.
