Namco to Axe 630

Financial news can be really boring at most times, but when money-related topics come up in the video game industry, it’s good to pay attention. The latest company to announce that money problems will affect its future is Namco Bandai. The company posted a US$ 129.5 million loss of the nine month period ending on December 31st, 2009.

As a result, Namco Bandai will be cutting around 10% of its staff compliment – around 630 jobs will be axed between now and the third quarter of the 2011 financial year.

"Since the management integration, the Bandai Namco Group has focused on bolstering its Group foundations through organisational restructuring and other efforts to achieve fusion as a new group as quickly as possible," the company said.

"While the consolidation of administrative tasks and other streamlining and cost-cutting efforts at key companies have yielded some results, the Group lost speed on the operational side. We determined that our inability to fully deliver products and services that responded flexibly to the changing market environment and user preferences led to declining profitability."

In layman’s terms, the company feels that better games need to be made in order to turn the situation around. That’s good news for gamers, but a big staff loss at a major publisher should always cause a little concern.