Time to sharpen the axe/pinkslip and behead/fire some employees.

Holy fuck, 97.5%?

I think I might be that remaining 2.5%, I bought Disgaea 3 a little while ago.

Cyril makes a point as well, they're still making a profit, which means all their bills are being paid and all their employees are still staying around. "Profit" in a business sense is what money you make over and above all your regular costs.

The fact that NIS is still even making a profit period is actually amazing given the state of the world's economy right now.

I didn't even know they were a publicly trade company

Good point Cyril. And if they are doomed to get absorbed. At least let it be Koei Tecmo, so they'll have a RPG division as well to stand against Capcom, Namco Bandai, and Square Enix (Funny how three of those company names are merged compagnies)

You mean marketing bizarre niche weeaboo games in the US isn't profitable?

@Phantom Spaceman

This is not NISA, this is NIS(J).

wow. That's a rough number to have to go to investors with.

not surprised...but also wish it didn't happen like this.

This is what happens when you only release games on the Wii instead of- oh, nevermind.

@Gen Eric Gui

Their operating profit is down nearly 100%. They almost did NOT make a profit. Say I run a lemonade stand and make $100 a day. I start making the lemonade too bitter or I spend too much on the ingredients so that my profits drop to less than $3 a day. For all the work I do, does three bucks sound like I'm doing all right?

@Cowboy TTop

Then everyone would complain that they wouldn't pay for "next-gen" games that look like PS2 games, just like they did with Disgaea 3!

That sucks, but I haven't bought a NIS game yet this gen...I've played Disgaea 3 but I don't have a PS3 so it was only when I was at a friend's :(

Needs moar gaemz. Not PSP gaemz

Hopefully Nippon Ichi will pull of this blip. I love Disgaea.

Like I said on Japanator:

I hate to say it, but NIS relaly needs to step it up. No more remakes (as much as I love Disgaea 2 on the PSP) or half-assed PS2 assets. What they need to do is buckle down and make another cult hit. And while graphics aren't the most important thing, it's about time they start using HD 2D sprites and actually use the technology that's available to them.

NIS is one of my favorite devs and it sucks to see them doing badly, but when they're using PS2 sprites in a PS3 game, something needs to change.

MegaStryke: But it's operating profit, which means that everyone in the company is still getting paid and they're still in the black. In your given analogy, whoever was making/selling the Lemonade was already getting paid a full-time wage and you had covered the costs of the ingredients, sidewalk rental(?), and building costs, and you were still making $3 over that. That's how operating profit works.

When NIS starts making a loss and they have to go into the red to pay their fees and salaries, that's when things become troublesome. And like I already pointed out, this doesn't mean that their actual profits were down as much as the article says, as they could have done any number of things (like purchase new equipment or computers, or hired on a bunch of new staff) to lower their operating profits.

Unless we take a very close look at their financial records, we have absolutely no context for this news and reacting to it is just jumping the gun.