Elden Ring DLC and Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero helped drive their publisher's profits up by almost 1000% in 2024.
Bandai Namco published its financial results for the past financial year (which ended on March 31) early this morning (via Automaton). Net sales jumped by just under $600 million to $3.16 billion, but profit spiked a huge amount - growing 995% to $475 million.
That much growth means that while the 2025 financial year was a successful one, the 2024 year was likely substantially worse - cancelled projects and the failure of MMO Blue Protocol meant that there was a big drop in profits last year.
Still, it doesn't take away from the success of Bandai's big-ticket titles. The success of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree should come as little surprise, but I was personally impressed by the selling power of Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, which was a top-five best seller in the US last year. Shipping 3 million copies in its first day, it became the franchise's fastest-selling game ever.
As for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, it shipped 5 million copies in its first week, for an approximate attach rate of 20% - a figure almost unheard of for DLC. By contrast, Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion hit a 23% download rate several month after launch, while The Witcher 3's beloved Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine expansions boasted 22% and 24% respectively.
Given all that FromSoft success, Bandai Namco is likely licking its lips at the prospect of Elden Ring: Nightreign's imminent release, and is probably pretty sad that it's not publishing The Duskbloods.
Our list of the best FromSoftware games could soon be in need of an update.
