You would have thought that the enormous price cut that Nintendo’s newest handheld just received would indicate that third party developers would be experiencing the same lackluster sales, but for one developer, that is not the case. Namco-Bandai has just released their financial results for the June 2011 quarter, and amidst all the doom and gloom the company has managed to turn a profit to the tune of $42.1 million. Namco-Bandai attributes much of it’s profits to 3DS games as its major titles for the quarter. The developer shipped three titles for the Nintendo 3DS: One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP, Ridge Racer 3D, and Tales of the Abyss. One Piece and Ridge Racer have both broken the 100,000 units sold mark with selling 170,000 and 150,000 units respectively, while the launch title Ridge Racer 3D has shipped a respectable 90,000.
It is good to see developers having success with the 3DS. Hopefully these titles help show other third parties that it is possible to turn a profit on Nintendo’s handheld and lead to bigger and better games in the future.
Or perhaps we will continue to see more pets titles with a ”˜z’.
